


I Am Gone Though I Am Here

by Ravenclawsome



Category: Nothing Much to Do
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, F/M, Implied Sexual Content, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-02
Updated: 2015-03-26
Packaged: 2018-03-08 14:32:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 20,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3212627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ravenclawsome/pseuds/Ravenclawsome
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Beatrice and Benedick have always fought, it’s just what they do. But as their final year of high school draws to a close, things start to get worse. Finally, after a devastating fight at Pedro’s graduation party, Beatrice is forced to answer the question: would she and Benedick have fallen in love without the Love Gods?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“Bea? Bea. Beeeeatrice.”

The sound of her cousin’s voice woke Beatrice from what had honestly been a rather hungover sleep. She groaned, pulling the covers over her head to block the sunlight streaming in through the open curtains.

“Oh come on, sleepyhead, it’s not that bad.” Hero said, in a voice that was far too cheery for such an early hour. “Time to get up, face the day!”

“Hero,” Beatrice said, squinting over her blankets at the clock. “Why in the world would you make me face anything at six thirty in the morning?”

“For school,” Hero replied. “What, you didn’t forget, did you?”

Beatrice thought this was an odd response, mostly because she had literally graduated high school the day before. What, was there some weird paperwork she had forgotten to fill out? Had she somehow managed to fail her physics class, and they needed her to come in and register for another year of school? That would be somewhat anti climactic, especially after she’d been out all night celebrating her graduation with Meg and Balthazar and—

Shit.

Hero’s words forgotten, Bea bolted out of bed and looked madly around the room for where she’d left her bag.

“Wow, that was fast. I didn’t know you had such enthusiasm for school.” Hero joked, but Beatrice wasn’t paying attention.

“Have you seen my bag?” She demanded, her voice coming out harsher than she’d meant it to. Hero looked alarmed, but Bea didn’t have time to explain.

“It’s right there, isn’t it?” Hero said, pointing to a bag lying halfway under the bed.

“Are you kidding?” Bea said, dismissively. “I haven’t used that bag in forever, my phone wouldn’t be in there.”  She continued looking frantically in drawers and under papers, but Hero marched over to the bag and started digging. After a few seconds, she stood up again, phone in hand.

“This phone, you mean?” Hero said, pointing at the it. Beatrice stared at her cousin for a moment before grabbing the phone from her hands and unlocking it frantically.

“Are you okay, did something happen?” Hero asked. She had that look of concern on her face, like ‘cousin in distress’ signals were going off in her brain.

“I’m fine,” Beatrice lied. “It’s just, some things happened last night, I had this stupid fight with Ben, and I’m just- I’m just an idiot.” She had to work hard to keep her voice steady. This entire week had been a disaster, and it was all her fault. If she could just talk to him…

“Oh Bea, you’re not an idiot! You’re the smartest person I know,” Hero said, reaching forward and wrapping her cousin up in a warm hug. Beatrice hugged her back, and even though she was still on edge, she had to admit that the hug made her feel better. “Don’t let Ben get you to you,” Hero said as she stepped away. “If he’s going to be stupid, then that’s not your problem. Besides,” she continued, swinging her bag over her shoulder and taking a step towards the door. “You won’t really have to see him that much today anyway. If he’s still annoying you at lunch, we can just sit somewhere else.” With that, Hero left the room.

And Bea finally began to take in the space around her.

It was not her room. Well, it was, but it hadn’t looked this way for a while. The bed was back in the corner, instead of by the windows where she’d moved it at least a month ago. Her bulletin board had changed as well, there were still moving away cards and pictures of her Wellington friends tacked around the edges. The graduation pictures she’d put there just the day before were nowhere to be found. The top of her bookcase, the place of honor normally held by Floyd, was conspicuously empty.

Hero’s words rang in Beatrice’s head. _“For school. You didn’t forget, did you?”_   What was going on? Were her friends pulling some kind of elaborate graduation prank on her? But how could they have found the time to plan something like this when they’d been out with her all day? There were posters on her walls that she knew she’d thrown away ages ago, how could they have replaced those? And above everything else, why couldn’t she find Ben’s name in her stupid phone?

And then a thought slipped its way into her mind. A ridiculous, impossible thought, but it stayed there eating away at her brain until she couldn’t ignore it anymore. Slowly, she turned off her phone, and turned it back on.

The date on the home screen read, _August 8, 2014._

It was a week before Hero’s sixteenth birthday party.

Beatrice decided this was a good time to panic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so it begins! I've been working on this forever, so I really hope you guys enjoy it. The whole thing is done, I'll be posting a new chapter every Monday and Thursday.


	2. Chapter 2

Beatrice barricaded herself in her room and considered her options. She had run downstairs briefly to tell Leo and Hero that she felt too sick to go to school, before grabbing a newspaper and dashing back upstairs.

Her phone hadn’t lied, it was August 8th, and that was all Beatrice knew for sure. 

She had spent an hour looking through her things, trying to find some sign that this was all a joke, but no luck. She had all nine copies of Frankenstein on her shelf, instead of the eight that should've been there after she gave one to Ben. His flannel shirt was gone too, which really sucked because it might’ve done something to help calm her down. 

Finally she sat curled up on her bed, hugging her knees to her chest, trying to keep her breathing steady. This had to be a joke, that was the only logical explanation. 

She called Meg. 

“Babes, where are you? Class starts like, now.” Meg did sound like she was at school, but that was impossible. Meg had graduated yesterday, Beatrice had seen it. They’d both graduated, and time travel wasn’t real, end of story. 

“Meg,” Beatrice said slowly, “what day is it?”

“I don’t know, Friday?” Meg said. Then, to someone on her end of the line, “Oh hey you, come say hi to Beatrice!” There was a scuffling noise as the phone was passed from one person to another.

“Hi Beatrice,” said a low, snide voice that Beatrice had hoped never to hear again. 

“Hi Robbie,” Beatrice mumbled. There was a scuffling noise again, and Meg took over the phone. 

“So, why did you call me? It wasn’t just to ask what day it is, was it?”

“Uh…” Beatrice didn’t know what to say. Meg hadn’t talked to Robbie for ages. _Robbie had transferred to another school._

“Bea I’m sorry but I really have to go, call me later?” 

“Yeah, yeah sorry Meg.” Beatrice stammered.

“Love you! Don’t cut too many classes.” Meg said, and she hung up.

Beatrice put her phone down on her lap and checked the date again, just to be sure.  _August 8th, 2014._

There was no point in denying it, she had officially lost her mind. 

She decided to check Youtube. It felt like a useless thing to do, but she had to see if all the videos were there. If she really had time travelled, which she _hadn’t_ , some of them would be missing. She tapped the search bar, and her thumbs hovered over her phone’s keyboard. After a pause, she typed _“Way To Tell You,”_ and hit go.

Nothing. 

She logged into her account, clicked on the “videos” tab, and skimmed through the twenty or so videos. They ended at _“How To Be A Hero In The Kitchen.”_

Beatrice scrolled madly through her page, as if the song would be buried somewhere among her first videos. It couldn't just be gone, someone would've had to take it down. The only other person with access to their account was Hero, and Beatrice couldn't imagine her deleting _"Way To Tell You,"_ even as a prank. 

So that left the one other option more ridiculous than Hero deleting Bea's love song.

Time. Freaking. Travel.

As she scanned the video titles, still hoping that things would go back to normal if she stared long enough, Beatrice got the sense that something was off.  It was almost like... some of the videos were missing? _“Of course there are videos missing,”_ she reminded herself. _“If I'm in the past, some of them haven’t happened yet.”_

Still.

She thought back to when she and Hero and Ben had binge watched all the videos, trying to remember the order. There was that one after the pizza party, the one with the chocolate salad, obviously the one where she “caught” her friends talking about Ben-

But wait. Beatrice squinted at her phone screen, and looked through the vlogs again. Her _“Limits of Technology”_ video was missing. But that definitely happened before their kitchen video, Beatrice was sure of it. She clicked on the vlog that usually came right after, _“Help Me (Make Hero’s Present Awesome).”_ Her face popped up on the screen, and immediately Beatrice knew something was wrong. 

“Hello all!” her past self said cheerily into the camera. “So as you probably know by now, Hero’s sixteenth birthday is coming up! The cutie, she’s growing up so fast!” Past Beatrice fake swooned, falling back on her bed. Then the video cut to her sitting normally again. “I thought that if any of you had well wishes for Hero, it would be fun to compile them all into a card, or something. So if you want to send messages, drawings, anything like that…” 

Beatrice dropped her phone.

What? WHAT? What was happening? She'd never said any of that craziness about Hero's present, that video was supposed to be about Ben. But then there she was, smiling on the phone screen and continuing to flail her arms around in excitement for her cousin's birthday. 

This was not the past that Beatrice knew, this was something else entirely. 

Retrieving the iPhone from the floor,  Beatrice typed _benaddicktion_ into the Youtube search bar. Ben’s channel popped up and she clicked the first video she saw, just wanting to hear his voice. It was the one he’d filmed in her bathroom at the pizza party, the one where he’d grinned like an idiot and proclaimed his love for her to the entire internet. But just like her _“Present”_ video, she knew something was off as soon as it started playing.

“So I’m at Beatrice’s,” Ben said gloomily, “Pedro and Claudio dragged me over to this pizza party because… I have no idea. They like to see me suffer, apparently.” 

It was so wrong, so unlike what should’ve been happening that Beatrice felt sick to her stomach. She kept watching, hoping that things would get better. 

They didn’t.

“Beatrice is honestly the worst. It’s like, she can ruin anything. She has ruined pizza for me forever, probably. And parties.” Ben’s face was contorted with frustration, Bea hadn’t seen him like that in a long time. “This whole thing is just Pedro’s party all over again! I get it, Beatrice, you hate me. Well don’t worry,” he glared at the camera, “the feeling’s mutual.” 

The video ended, and Beatrice felt her heart crack. _“It’s not really him,”_ she tried to tell herself. _“Whatever is going on, that’s not your Ben.”_ But it still hurt. Especially after… well, after the awful week leading up to graduation.

But now wasn’t the time to think about that, she had to figure out what had gone wrong. Why did Ben still hate her? Why hadn’t she made a reaction video when she’d overheard the girls talking about Ben’s supposed feelings? 

Unless…

Beatrice found Ursula’s channel and clicked on the “videos” tab apprehensively. Her eyes darted through the videos, looking desperately for the right one. It had to be here, it _had_ to be. But after 30 seconds of staring at her phone screen in vain, Beatrice was forced to accept the truth.

_“PROJECT IV - MAKEUP BLOOPERS”_   was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dun dun DUUUN.  
> See you on Monday ; )


	3. Chapter 3

Beatrice spent the afternoon watching every video on all three channels and eating most of the emergency ice cream that she and Hero kept in the freezer. By the time Hero was due to get home from school, Bea thought she had some idea of what had happened. 

Everything was the same, up until the non existent _“Makeup Bloopers”_. After that, things got murkier. The Love Gods had never formed, that much was clear. Their friends hadn’t decided to trick them, so she and Benedick had just gone on hating each other, like idiots. To make things worse, nothing about her friends’ pasts had really changed. John was still planning to make Pedro look like an idiot, Claudio thought Hero was cheating on him, and nobody except Ursula’s year nines knew what was really going on. 

Hero’s birthday was going to happen just like it had the first time. 

Beatrice supposed it was fitting that after the second worst week of her life, she should be forced to relive the first, but what had prompted it? Normal people didn’t get transported back in time whenever they had a shitty week. 

But last night had been more than that. The night of Pedro’s graduation party was something she never wanted to think about again. 

 

***

 

_“Beatrice!” Ben shouted after her as she stormed across Pedro’s lawn. “Please come back, I'm sorry!"_

_“Oh, you're SORRY?” Beatrice whipped around, yelling right back at him and making Ben take a step back. “What am I supposed to say to that?”_

_“You're not_ supposed _to say anything, maybe if you stopped running away for five seconds you could actually stop and talk to me!”_

_“Fine, let’s TALK.” They were standing four meters apart, but they were yelling loud enough for the whole street to hear them. “You realize that this gap year is something I’ve wanted to do for years, right? It’s not something I’ve just decided to do to piss you off!“_

_“You think I don’t know that?” Ben retorted, “I’m not stopping you Bea, you can do whatever the hell you—“_

_“No, no, you’re being a huge dick about this! You say you want to talk, but whenever I bring up traveling you get angry with me! What, are you scared I’ll get to Belgium and some big foreign guy will appear and sweep me off my feet?”_

_“I don’t know, should I be? You’re so obviously eager to get as far away from me as possible!”_

_They both paused. Ben looked like he immediately regretted the words that had come out of his mouth, but Beatrice just got angrier._

_“You have known for the ENTIRE time we have dated that my plan was to travel. Did you think I would change that? For you?” She spat the words at him, and Beatrice saw him flinch like she had punched him in the gut. Somewhere in the back of her head a voice was telling her to stop, but it was late and she was drunk and there was no going back. “It’s not like I didn’t ask you to go with me, you could’ve—“_

_“My parents said no!” Ben interjected, but Beatrice was on a roll._

_“Well I’m sorry to have caused so much turmoil in your family Ben. Maybe if we’d never dated we could’ve just gone on hating each other, and you could sleep with all the fucking girls you want at your fucking university!”_

_And then she had gone to her car, slammed the door and driven away, leaving Ben alone on Pedro’s lawn._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this one's a little short! Thursday's update will be longer. 
> 
> In case you haven't seen, I've been posting chapter art over at http://jesuisdansserdaigle.tumblr.com/tagged/i_am_gone_though_i_am_here. Feel free to check that out!


	4. Chapter 4

“Beatrice? You here?” It was Leo, calling from downstairs. Beatrice sat up, wiping her eyes furiously. She _hated_ crying.

“I’m here!” She shouted, trying her hardest to sound normal.

“I brought home a pizza for dinner, you feel up to eating anything?”

It had to be pizza.

“I’ll be right down.” Beatrice ran to the bathroom to make sure her eyes didn’t look too red, purposely tried to ignore the empty bathtub, and then ran back to her room to throw a sweater on over her pajama top. When she felt reasonably ready to face people again, she walked down the hall and paused at the top of the stairs. She took a few deep breaths. _“Everything is okay,”_ she thought. _“It’s just Leo, act normal. Don’t think about what a bastard he is. Was? Whatever. Just, act like nothing's wrong.”_ Feeling as calm as she possibly could, Beatrice started down the stairs.  

She made it about halfway before her calm facade crumbled.

Benedick was standing by the door.

He looked up at her. For a minute, she thought he recognized her for who she really was, the Beatrice from the future. Her last shred of hope was that this whole “time travel” thing had happened to Ben too, and that they might be stuck in the past together. If she could just talk to him, maybe they could figure out how to get home.

But when they locked eyes, she knew it wasn't him. Not really. He sighed heavily.

“Well well well, if it isn’t the Lady Beatrice. Come to grace us with your presence, party princess?”

Every word stabbed. She knew that past Beatrice would’ve said something snarky right back, but after everything that had already happened today she didn’t have room in her brain to think of witty comebacks. She just stared at him, trying not to think about the last time she’d seen _her_ Benedick. Mercifully, Leo chose that moment to walk out of the kitchen, Ben’s football jersey in hand.

“I knew you left it here!” Leo said, shoving the jersey into Benedick’s outstretched hands. “It’s been sitting on our table for ages, I just assumed it was one of mine.”

“Thanks man,” Ben said, “see you at practice tomorrow?”

“Definitely.”

Ben turned to leave, but glanced up at Beatrice quickly before exiting. She was still standing there stupidly, and she saw confusion on his face before he walked out and shut the door behind him.

“You okay Bea?” Leo asked, “normally when Ben’s around there’s a lot more shouting.”

“I’m fine!” she lied. “I just…”

She just wanted to run after that boy and kiss him until he loved her again.

Leo probably wouldn't buy that.

“I’m just feeling a bit shit.” she mumbled. It wasn’t a great excuse, but Leo didn’t question it. Plus, it was true. “Where’s Hero?” She asked, changing the subject as quickly as possible.

“Out with Ursula,” Leo said, grabbing a slice of pizza from the kitchen. “She said something about getting new shoes for her birthday party?”

Beatrice remembered that happening, she had gone with them and complained about the impracticality of high heels.

She followed Leo into the kitchen and eyed the pizza. There were olives on it. Olives! Honestly, whatever magical force had put her in this world had a sick sense of humor.

“Bea, are you sure you’re okay?” Leo said, eyeing her pajama bottoms, messy hair and pained expression. When Beatrice didn’t respond, Leo nudged her in the direction of the stairs. “You’re still sick, go lie down.” he said. “I’ll save some pizza for you.”

Beatrice didn’t argue. She dragged herself back upstairs, collapsed onto her bed, and screamed into her pillow. She hated this, this feeling of helplessness. Normally she could just ignore things that made her uncomfortable, or at the very least punch somebody in the face for annoying her. But who was she supposed to punch in this situation, herself? She couldn’t talk her way out of this, and she didn’t think hitting herself would do any good.

Maybe this was all a dream, or something. Maybe she would close her eyes, and wake up back in her room, and she could run down to Ben’s house and apologize for being such a shit girlfriend.

But it didn’t feel like a dream.

There was a knock on the door, and a quiet voice said “Beatrice? Are you awake?”

“Come in,” Beatrice mumbled, sitting upright as Hero walked into the room. “I thought you were out with Ursula.”

“I just got back. I’m sorry we didn’t ask you to come, I thought you might not be up to it. Feeling better?” Beatrice groaned. “Well, let me know if I can do anything to help.”

For a moment, Beatrice considered telling her everything. Would her cousin believe her? _“Actually Hero, I’m not sick. I came from an alternate future where I’ve been dating Benedick Hobbes, any ideas on how to get me back home?”_ Even if, by some miracle, Hero decided she was telling the truth, Beatrice would be stepping into dangerous waters. There was a chance that she might accidentally spill something about Claudio, or the party, and just make everything worse.

After watching all the videos that morning, Beatrice had decided it was no use trying to stop the party from happening. What was she supposed to do, convince the boys that Hero wasn’t a slut? Stop Robbie from being such a dick? And even if she did figure out a way to fix what had happened, Beatrice wasn’t completely sure if she wanted to.

As awful as it had been, she couldn’t guarantee that their lives would be better if it hadn’t happened. What if stopping Claudio from ruining Hero’s party only led to some worse humiliation? What if they were together for months, years even before they realized they weren’t right for one another? Hero had grown into her own so much since she and Claudio had decided to just be friends, Beatrice didn’t want to ruin that. And Pedro? That party had changed his life. As much as Beatrice hated that he’d sided with Claudio, she knew it had made him a better person in the long run. How else would he have gotten out from under the shadow of being an “all ‘round great guy?” Would he have reconciled with John at all? And what about Balthazar? Beatrice’s head hurt just thinking about it. No, it was in everyones' best interest that the party happen like it always had.   

Still, it hurt to see Hero so happy, oblivious to the fact that her world was about to be shaken up like a snow globe.

“I don’t think there’s anything you can do for me, Hero.” Beatrice sighed. “I’ll just have to figure this out on my own.”

“Is there something you’re not telling me?” Hero walked over to the bed, pushing Bea’s hair off of her forehead and checking her temperature. “Leo said you were acting funny earlier.” Beatrice wracked her brain for something to say that didn’t sound completely insane.

“I, um, I lost something yesterday. Something important, and I’m not sure if— _how_ I’ll find it again.”

“Oh, that sucks,” Hero said, “what was it?”

“Um… a project! Yeah, just a project for school,” Beatrice improvised.

“Is that why you skipped today? You could’ve just told me.” Hero gave her a quick hug. “Well, I’ll let you rest, seems like you’ve had a tough day.” She headed towards the door, but paused on the threshold. “You know who could help you find that project?”  Beatrice shook her head. “Ursula’s year nines!” Hero said, “I’m sure they’d be thrilled to track it down for you.” Beatrice snorted.

“Yeah, I bet they would. Night, Hero.”

“Night, Bea. Should I get the lights?”

“Please.”

Hero switched off the lights and closed the door, leaving Beatrice alone with her thoughts again.

Like anyone could help her get home. A person would have to be completely crazy to believe that Beatrice had traveled through time and space and arrived in an alternate universe.

Completely crazy.

…Or maybe just a little crazy.

Beatrice turned the idea over in her mind a few times. She didn’t know them very well, so she probably wasn’t in danger of revealing anything important about their futures if she confided in them. She was older than them, so there was a better chance that they would believe her. They also seemed to take themselves pretty seriously, so if she asked them not to tell anyone what she was up to, she bet they would keep that promise.

_“So it’s settled,”_ Beatrice thought, as she snuggled under her sheets, _“Tomorrow, I’m getting help from ‘The Watch.’”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Looks like Dogberry and Verges are getting pulled into this hot mess...  
> So many hugs and thanks to everyone who has been reading so far!


	5. Chapter 5

“Mesmerizing. Quite mesmerizing.” Dogberry and Verges were pacing back and forth, apparently deep in thought. Beatrice, who had been practically dragged over to a puffy armchair and given a cup of tea the minute she arrived, sat in front of them. 

“What you are communicating,” Dogberry continued, “Is that through happenstance and

tu- tumultuous tribulators, you have traveled back through time?” 

“And space!” Verges chimed in. 

“Yes.” Beatrice said, a little nervously. “I know it all sounds impossible, but—“ 

“On the contrary,” said Verges, stopping her pacing and staring at Bea with her inquisitive brown eyes. “Fantastical, sure. But not impossible.” 

“When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however 

im- imperturbable, must be the truth.” Dogberry added. “Sherlock Holmes said that, and he’s never been wrong.” 

Beatrice wasn’t sure how well that particular quote fit her current situation, but that wasn’t really the most important thing to grumble about at the moment. 

“So you really do believe me?” she asked. They’d listened intently throughout her whole story, but she couldn’t be sure if they were wondering how to get her home or how quickly to call the police. 

“Of course!” Dogberry shouted.

“Full heartedly!” Verges added with equal enthusiasm. 

Beatrice felt relieved. Who would’ve thought Ursula’s year nines were so sweet? Even if they did fumble their words around like they’d shoved them into a blender. 

“Now,” Dogberry said, in a more serious tone. “Let’s get down to business.” He and Verges resumed their pacing so quickly and smoothly that Beatrice was sure they’d practiced it several times. “We need to establish what event, or occasion, caused you to be ejected into our world. Were you engorging in any unusual behavior the evening before your arrival?” 

“Perhaps you were attacked?” Verges added, with slightly more enthusiasm than Beatrice thought she ought to.

“Set upon? Lost? In a state of advanced distress?” Dogberry counted off on his fingers as he listed. 

“That one!” Beatrice said quickly, startling the two detectives. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to— anyway, that last one you said. Distress.”

“Ah yes!” Dogberry and Verges approached her from both sides, they’d definitely practiced this before hand. “Tell us what events surpassed that night to cause this, _distress_.” 

“Well…” Beatrice was reluctant to talk about that night to anybody, and certainly not Ursula’s year nines. But she supposed, if there was even a slight chance that it could help get her home…

“You know how I said that in this world, my boyfriend hates me? Well the night before I, um, jumped through time, we had a big fight. And I—“ she broke off, trying not to sound like she was on the verge of tears.  

“Would you like some more tea?” Verges asked, quickly.

“I believe Verges’ dad retains some cookies upstairs, if you’d care for one.” Dogberry added. 

“No, no, it’s fine,” Beatrice said, smiling. They really were sweethearts, the both of them. She took a deep breath, cleared her throat, and continued. “So we fought, and I said that maybe things would’ve been simpler if we’d never dated, and then I drove off. Not my best moment of communication.” She added, trying to smile and failing miserably. 

“And now— now you are in this universe? A universe where you indubitably were never a couple?” Dogberry asked. 

“Well then, that makes it quite simple, really.” said Verges. There was a pause, as her words were heard and fully comprehended. Then Dogberry and Beatrice both turned to look at her, so in sync that they could’ve been rehearsing it for weeks. 

“Simple?” Dogberry said, clearly just as confused as Beatrice. “Verges, what possible answer could you process?” 

“Well, just think about us!” Verges said. “When we on ‘The Watch’ don’t know where to turn, where do we go?” 

“To Holmes!” Dogberry said, proudly.

“Exactly!” said Verges. “We are detectives, and therein we must turn to detectives who have come before us for answers. So the question we must ask is, who came before Beatrice?” The two eyed her in a way that was slightly unsettling. Beatrice felt like a tiny bug under a microscope, the way their huge eyes scrutinized her.

“I’ve got it!” Verges said finally, after what felt like the world’s longest silence. “ _Back to the Future!”_

“I’m sorry, I’m still not totally sure what you’re—“ But Beatrice’s words were drowned out by Dogberry’s enthusiasm. 

“Of course, why didn’t we see it before!” He said. “Verges, you inevitable genius!” 

“Guys!” Beatrice shouted, loud enough to get their attention. “I don’t get it, why should we be thinking about _Back to the Future_?” 

“Why, elementary my dear Beatrice!” Dogberry said, perching himself on the arm of her chair. “In a situation so fantasmic as yours, we must look for fantasmical answers.”

“Exactly,” said Verges, situating herself on the chair’s opposite arm. “The story that most resembles your current one is that of Marty McFly, noted fictional time traveler.” 

“He changed his past accidentally and created a situation in the which his parents had never encountered one another, but then succeeded in reverberating his future!” Dogberry added, counting off on his fingers again. 

“Okay,” said Beatrice, who was not comfortable with the feeling that Dogberry and Verges were about three steps ahead of her. “So… so for me to get home, I’m supposed to follow the plot of _Back to the Future_? But that would mean—“ 

“You have to get him to fall in love with you again! Verges interrupted, too excited to let Beatrice finish. “Your boyfriend! If you succeed in winning back his affections, you could be transported back home!” 

“Back to the future!” said Dogberry, clearly just as excited. 

Beatrice’s head was spinning. Win him back? She’d seen the way he glared at her yesterday. It felt weird to admit it, but she wasn’t sure if she _could_ win him back without all of her friends’ meddling. She looked up to see Verges and Dogberry staring at her expectantly. 

“Sorry, did you say something?” asked Beatrice. 

“The end date!” Dogberry said, matter-of-factly.

“The— sorry, the what?” 

“The ultimatum? The final hour? The last stand?” Verges rattled off. 

“In _Back to the Future_ , they do not have forever to locate and win back Marty’s mum.” Dogberry said. “It had to be wholly completed by the school dance, where they first fell in love.” 

“So what’s yours?” Verges said. “The time by which you must win him back? Is there an approaching event, or perhaps a social function?” 

Was there ever. Beatrice knew full well that there was only one major event coming up in her life. If Dogberry and Verges were right, she had far too little time to prepare for it. 

“Hero’s birthday party.” She said, quietly. “It’s a week from today.” And she buried her face in her hands.

The two detectives shared a look. 

“I’ve got the tea,” Verges said.

“Cookies, on the double,” Dogberry added.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The week to win back Ben's heart starts next time...


	6. Chapter 6

When Beatrice arrived at school on Monday morning, she was ready to put her plan into action. While it was true she had spent the better part of Sunday sleeping in, drinking copious amounts of tea and coming to terms with the fact that yes-this-really-was-happening, she’d also had plenty of time to think. 

In theory, it could be done in a week. If what Ben had told her was true, he’d had feelings for her for years. All Beatrice had to do was convince him that she felt the same way, and hopefully everything would work itself out. He would take Hero’s side at the party, things would go back to the way they were supposed to be, and Beatrice could go home. 

The problem was, Ben's  feelings had two entire months to develop and grow and change between the Love Gods and Hero’s birthday last time. Ben could be a little impulsive, sure, but Beatrice wasn’t certain that he could fall in love with her in just a week.

She wanted to believe that, regardless of his feelings for her, Ben wouldn’t agree with Claudio and Pedro at the party. He was a good person, and from what she’d seen of _“HYPOTHETICALLY”_ he still had his doubts about John’s story in this universe. But what did Ben stand to gain by siding with Hero? He'd still been strongly opposed to Claudio dating her in the first place, and Beatrice had no problem envisioning him taking Claudio's side just to prove that relationships were "fucking terrible." 

But the party wasn’t their “ultimatum” or whatever Verges had said because Ben had taken Hero’s side, it was because of everything he’d done after that. Making sure Hero was alright, helping to clear people out of the house, cleaning up after everyone else had left, holding Beatrice while she cried on his shoulder. If not for that night, if Ben hadn't been there to support her, Beatrice thought she might've gone crazy. He'd been there at the exact moment when she needed him most, and she'd fallen for him all over again. It was that night when they’d gone from “Beatrice against Ben” to “Beatrice and Ben against the world.” 

Beatrice was trying not to think too hard about graduation week. She couldn’t solve two problems at once, so something had to go. She was doing her best to shove all memories of the week leading up to her time-travel deep into the center of her brain, so she could focus on what needed to be done here and now. If she let her other thoughts overwhelm her, she would probably have to go home and scream into her pillow some more. 

So here was her chance to prove that it could truly be done without all the plotting and the weird fishing metaphors. She had one shot. 

Her plan began that morning in history. This world’s Beatrice had apparently never switched project groups, which opened up a great opportunity to talk to Ben. 

She was late to class, but luckily so was her teacher. The second she walked into the room, Beatrice's eyes shot over to Benedick. 

It was so weird, seeing him now. This unfamiliar version of Ben. In her timeline, this was the week when they'd been stealing glances at each other during class and trying to ignore their feelings. There had been one day when their history teacher had asked Beatrice the name of the pope who'd recently retired, and she had pretended not to know so she didn't have to say anything close to Benedick's name out loud. 

Beatrice sat down in her assigned seat next to Ben, trying to act casual. She rummaged around in her bag for a pencil and a notebook. _Just another day, nothing strange or time-travel related going on with me..._

“Not sure if you’re aware of this, since you’re relatively new here and all, but class started about 30 seconds ago.” Ben said, without even looking up from his textbook. “You know, at the same time it’s started all year?” 

“Got held up,” Beatrice said, “I couldn’t remember where I’d put any of my stuff.” This was true, her efforts to locate all her possessions had been hindered both by her memory, and by the fact that Hero had attempted to tidy up Bea’s room while she was out consulting Dogberry and Verges. 

“Nicely done, very well done. Maybe one day you’ll forget the way to school, that’d do us all a favor.” Ben said, doodling distractedly in the corner of a page on New Zealand’s independence.  

“Oh, like your memory is so great.” Beatrice scoffed. “Remember that time we went to see _Deathly Hallows Part 1_ , and you realized halfway through that you were supposed to be at a football game?” 

This comment had exactly the effect she had been hoping for. Benedick stopped drawing, turned away from his textbook and stared at her. Rule number one of “Team B” interactions pre Love Gods: _never mention any time that we were friends._

“Okay guys, let’s get things started,” their history teacher said, bustling into the room with an armful of papers and setting them down on her desk. “Ursula, could you turn on the projector for me? I’ve got to answer some emails quick and I’m not in the mood to wrestle with that stupid thing.” 

“You remember that?” Ben asked quietly. He was still staring at her, but he looked more confused than Beatrice thought he would be. 

“Of course I remember it, it was ridiculous.” she said, rolling her eyes. “You knocked over all the popcorn when you realized you were missing the game, and then you tried to mime what you'd done to me so you wouldn’t bother anyone else in the theater.” She smiled down at her desk, that had been a good day. 

Ben was still staring. Just as he opened his mouth to say something, the projector switched on and their teacher clapped her hands together. 

“And we are in business! So, let’s start off today with an overview, and then we’ll split into our groups.” 

They didn’t get a chance to talk one-on-one for the rest of the class, but Beatrice saw Ben glancing over at her when he thought she wasn’t looking. 

It wasn’t an earth-shattering development, but it was definitely something. 

 

***

 

Lunch was weird. Extremely weird. Beatrice almost felt like she was back in her room, watching the old vlogs with Hero and Ben. Meg was back on with Robbie, and they were infatuated with each other in the corner. Hero and Claudio sat together, although Beatrice could see his discomfort and anger hiding just below the surface. Balthazar was plucking away at his ukulele, glancing up at Pedro whenever he got the chance, and playing something that sounded suspiciously like “An Ode”. Ursula was messing with the settings on her camera, apparently displeased with the amount of light peeking through the clouds into the courtyard. 

And then there was Benedick, who was sitting with his arms folded like he didn’t want to talk to anyone. Once in a while he glanced over at her, but if she caught his eye he looked away quickly. 

“Okay, I’ve got one,” Pedro said, looking pleased with himself. 

“Oh come on Pedro, not this again,” Claudio said, looking even grumpier than Ben, if that were possible. 

“No no no, this is a good one,” Pedro said determinedly, running his fingers through his hair. “Would you rather go back in time to meet your ancestors, or forward in time to meet your descendants?” The whole group looked at Bea and Ben expectantly, waiting for the explosion. 

“Forward in time,” they said, in unison. Ben looked over at Beatrice in alarm, but she was just as surprised as he was. She couldn’t remember the last time they’d agreed on a “would you rather” question, even after they started dating. The rest of the group looked shocked. Ursula had looked up from her camera, Balthazar’s playing had stopped. Everyone seemed frozen in place, except for Meg. 

“Oh my god, did you two just agree on something?” she said in delight, untangling herself from Robbie to get a better look at their faces. “Someone get a thermometer, I think hell just froze over.”

They all began to giggle, the politer among them trying and failing to stifle their laughter. 

“So, to the future,” Pedro said, looking weirdly like he’d just swallowed a bug. “Why the future?”

“Easy,” Beatrice said, “if I go back in time I could screw up my future. If I go forward in time, I don’t risk destroying anything unless I die while I’m there.” She’d already had a weekend filled with traveling back in time, and it was one of the most stressful things she’d ever been through. To the future, absolutely. 

“Well, that’s one reason,” Ben said, “but what about TV? Movies? If you went to the future, you could watch every episode of Doctor Who that hasn’t been released yet.”

“You could read history textbooks, find out what to expect in the next 100 years or so.” Beatrice added, her mind buzzing with possibilities. “Plan for financial crisis, know which movies are crap before you have to sit through them.”

“Find out who wins the World Cup.” 

“Learn about your life and all the things you accomplished.”

“Play with cool, futuristic gadgets. Hoverboards, you guys. HOVERBOARDS.”

Beatrice continued rattling off the merits of visiting the future, watching Ben out of the corner of her eye. He was so invested in the debate, he didn’t seem to notice that they weren’t arguing. 

When the bell finally rang to signal the end of lunch, Beatrice hung back a bit. 

"Hey Benedick," she said. He looked up from his bag, and stared at her like he didn't know her at all. She usually only talked to him in situations where they were forced to hang out, so Beatrice understood his confusion. She would've liked to be a little more subtle, but she was pressed for time. "You know teleportation would be better than a hoverboard," she said. Ben's eyes narrowed. 

"You're crazy," he said. "Hoverboards would be amazing."

"For fun, sure, but as a method of transportation? Teleportation would be so much quicker and easier." This was good, they'd had this debate before. Beatrice remembered it had been quite a passionate discussion, and not just because they'd decided to make out instead of declaring a winner. _"See, this way, we both win,"_ Ben had said, before Beatrice pulled him into another kiss. 

But she was letting her mind wander. 

"Whatever, Beatrice," Ben said, swinging his bag over his shoulder. "I don't have time to hear your ridiculous point of view. I've got actual classes to get to, and you're in my way." Beatrice blinked, then realized she was standing directly in his path to the door. For a second, she thought about staying put. She was going to make him have this conversation with her, and somehow as they talked Ben would realize how perfect they were for each other. 

But instead, Beatrice stepped aside and let him walk by her. Her fingers lightly brushed his as he passed, and it sent shivers down her spine. 

So much for Monday. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're over a third of the way there! Keep at it Beatrice, I'm sure things will be better on Tuesday. 
> 
> I've been wrapping myself in a blanket of all your kudos and comments, and it's so lovely and snuggly warm. Much love to you all!


	7. Chapter 7

On Tuesday morning, Beatrice already felt panicked about time. 

Benedick hadn't spoken to her _at all_ after lunch on Monday, and when she tried to catch him after school he'd walked into the boys bathroom specifically to avoid her. Kinder people, like Hero, might've claimed that Ben actually needed to use the bathroom, but Beatrice knew better. She'd seen him use that move more than once, although never on her.

So Beatrice had been stuck in her house for an evening, brainstorming ways to make him talk to her. She'd tried talking a walk to clear her head, but it had only made things worse. She'd started subconsciously following the path that she and Ben always took between their houses, thinking about what made him like her at all.

Beatrice hadn't exactly had to woo Ben the first time around, the Love Gods had done most of that for her. Besides, gaining Benedick's affection had never been a problem, not since they were fourteen. He'd been proclaiming his love for Beatrice before she'd even come close to recognizing her feelings. Now that the burden of flirtation was on her, she didn’t have a clue what she was doing. 

Beatrice made it halfway to Ben's house before she realized where her feet were taking her, and hurried back home to think somewhere else. 

When she walked into history on Tuesday morning, five minutes early this time, Ben was already sitting in his desk with crossed arms. She sat down in her usual seat next to him, took her books and supplies out of her bag, and made sure she’d remembered to do her homework.

He was still staring at her.

“What?” Beatrice said. She was glad that he was paying attention to her, but he didn’t seem very happy. 

“Why do you remember that time at the movies?” Ben asked, as though he’d been waiting all day to ask her.

Beatrice hadn’t been expecting that. In fact, it took her a second to remember what he was even talking about. The movies? Like, when they were fourteen, with the popcorn? Why wouldn’t she remember that? Beatrice would’ve thought Ben was joking if he hadn’t looked so serious. 

“What do you mean, ‘why do I remember it?’” Beatrice asked.

“Well, I didn’t think you— it was a long time ago,” Ben said, looking uncomfortable. “It’s a stupid thing to remember, that’s all.”

“But you remember it too!” Beatrice countered. “If you really thought it was stupid, you would’ve forgotten about it."

“Whatever,” Ben mumbled, rubbing his eyes distractedly. "I'm too tired to deal with your nonsense."

"My _nonsense_?" Beatrice laughed. "Are you an old, English guy stuck in a high schooler's body?" 

The Benedick she knew would've laughed with her. He probably would've started talking in an old man voice, or imitating his Scottish grandfather just to see Bea smile. She tried not to let on how attractive she thought his accents were, but he knew. 

But this wasn't her Benedick, and their dynamic was completely different. Instead of taking her comment as a friendly joke, Benedick rolled his eyes in annoyance. 

He didn't laugh. He didn't even respond, he just opened his history textbook with a clunk and began to sketch stick figures in the margins. 

Bea watched his hand moving sharply over the glossy pages of the book. She hadn’t ever noticed it before they started dating, but Ben drew a lot when he was bored. Never anything complex or masterful, just simple stuff. Sometimes he would tape notes on her locker with stick people and flamingos sketched all around the edges. One time he drew a heart with “B+B” written in the middle, and then he wrote in parenthesis under that, “ _(The B+B stands for Brownies and Birds, obviously.)”_

The bell rang, just as their teacher bolted into the room.

“I’m here!” she said, practically falling into her desk chair. “No need to congratulate me or anything, but I am technically on time today, so there you go. We’re going straight to our project groups, so start working and I’ll come around to check on you in a few minutes.” 

Before Beatrice had the chance to say anything more to Ben, one of the other group members approached them and started talking excitedly about her ideas. The rest of the group gathered around, and all chances of talking to Ben alone were gone for the rest of the class. 

Beatrice honestly didn’t pay attention for most of it, her mind kept drifting back to all the notes Ben had left her in her universe. She had always sprinted down the hall whenever she spotted one fluttering against her locker. There was a folder full of them in her book bag, and she would take them out and read them sometimes when she felt angry or stressed. If Ben wasn’t around, they were the next best thing. 

She wished she had them with her now. 

 

_Bea,_

_I’ve made an amazing discovery. You know what our couple name would be? BEADICK. Like, literally Be A Dick. This is amazing, tell everyone we know._

_Ben_

 

She’d found that note taped right above a second one, written in the same messy handwriting but with a different pen.

 

_Bea,_

_ALTERNATE COUPLE NAME: BEATRICK. Because our friends tricked us! I know, I know, I’m extremely clever and funny and handsome._

_Also, it occurs to me that I did not proclaim my love for you in my last note, as I am want to do. I will fix this immediately._

 

_Love, Ben_

 

***

 

After the bell finally rang, Beatrice caught up with Benedick in the hall outside of their classroom. 

“Can I talk to you?” she said, struggling a little bit to keep up with him. She’d forgotten how fast he usually walked when he wasn’t waiting up for her, he was _so_ tall. 

“Do you ever stop talking, Beatrice?” Ben said, not looking at her. 

“Oh, like you’re so quiet,” she replied, before she could stop herself. Arguing with Ben was like a reflex, it came more naturally to her than almost anything else. She imagined trying to put that on a resume. " _My strengths include holding grudges, being right and bickering with my boyfriend."_

They were almost to Benedick’s next class, one of the few they didn’t share. Beatrice had to think quickly, what could she say to get his attention? She didn’t have much time, Ben had begun to walk faster and she was practically jogging to keep up with him. As the classroom door came into view, Beatrice said the only thing she could think of.

“Ben!”

Benedick stopped so suddenly that she almost ran into him. He turned to look at her sharply, and his brow was furrowed in confusion. She had the urge to reach up and kiss all the tiny lines it made in his forehead. " _Oh my god Bea, focus."_

“Since when have you called me Ben?” he said.

“Since now, okay?” said Beatrice, staring him down. “God, the one time I actually try to get along with you and you keep pushing me away.” This could work. If she walked away now, he would be thinking about her words all class. 

"What?" Ben stared at her, disbelievingly. "Get... pushing you... what?" 

“Whatever," Beatrice said. "It was pointless to think we could actually stop arguing for five seconds. I’ll see you later.” She turned on her heel and walked away, leaving Ben standing speechless in the hall. 

The next time she saw him was in physics, but he barely looked at her and he was weirdly quiet all hour. In stats, their teacher had to call his name three times before Ben realized she was trying to get his attention. 

By the time Bea got to english, she had begun to lose hope. Maybe she shouldn’t have walked away from him earlier, maybe she should’ve tried to talk. She could’ve explained the entire situation to him right then and there, if she’d wanted to. Hell, she could’ve told him that she loved him, that might’ve saved everyone some time. 

But when she approached her desk, she noticed something there that shouldn’t have been. Her eyes widened, and she was at her seat faster than she would’ve thought possible. 

There was a small, folded piece of paper taped to her desk. She reached down and carefully unstuck it from the wooden surface, hardly daring to hope what had been written inside. She unfolded it delicately, like it was a tiny bird in her palm. 

 

_Beatrice,_

_Remember that time when you tried to prove you were better at football than I was, and you kicked the ball so hard it bounced off the side of my house and smashed through my neighbor’s window? I guess she must have seen you recently, because yesterday she asked me why that “clumsy football girl” was back in town. I think she’s worried she might have to move._

_Ben_

 

Beatrice looked up at Ben, feeling like someone had filled her chest with tiny fireworks. He was sitting across the room, pretending not to pay her any attention, but she knew better. 

It was working. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like this is a good a time as any to say that "Get It Right" by Oh Honey is my official song for this fanfiction.  
> Well, "official" as in I feel like it fits the story pretty well, not like Oh Honey contacted me and was like "hey ravenclawsome, we want to sponsor your story. That didn't happen.


	8. Chapter 8

Wednesday. 

She was halfway there. Beatrice felt like it was finals week, and the closer she got to Friday the more unprepared she felt. 

Still, things had gone well yesterday. Benedick might not be falling for her yet, but at least he was talking to her. He’d texted her Tuesday night, totally without prompting, asking if she understood the physics homework. 

_“Ugh, barely."_  She'd replied. _"_ _Which problem are you on?”_

_“Oh, you know, the first one. Don’t make fun of me, this is literally hell.”_

_“It’s_ figuratively _hell, don’t exaggerate. And I’m not going to make fun of you.”_

_“You literally just did.”_

_“Okay, see that’s closer to how you should use literally.”_

They’d texted like that for an hour, trying to figure out how to calculate mass and acceleration and occasionally getting sidetracked. There was a rhythm to their conversation that was unfamiliar to Beatrice. It wasn’t the pre-Hero’s party anger, or the post-party comfortable teasing, it was somewhere in between. 

It definitely wasn't anything like their usual study sessions. 

 

_"Ben, we have to work."_

_"Do we though?"_

_"If you don't want to fail everything."_

_"Uuuuugh."_

_"Hey, you can do this. We're the cleverest people in the world, remember?"_

_"Is 'cleverest' a word?"_

_"Yes. I mean, I think- yeah. No it's totally a word. Don't change the subject!"_

_"I wasn't! I was genuinely curious."_

_"Sure, Ben."_

_"You're right though. We are the cleverest. But which of us is cleverer than the other?"_

_"Neither of us. WE are the cleverest, together. Our combined brainpower is unstoppable."_

_"I love you."_

_"Shut up, you're going to make me kiss you again and then we'll never get anything done."_

_"Works for me."_

 

It hadn't been a very productive day, but it had been excellent nonetheless. Beatrice felt something in her heart twist at the memory. If she ever wanted to procrastinate like that again, today had to be productive.

“Did you figure out question 8?” Beatrice asked as she slid into her seat in history that morning. “I swear I spent forty minutes on it and I still couldn’t get the answer.”

“Of course I figured it out, that’s why I look so well rested and sane.” Ben said. He looked neither.

“You look horrible,” said Beatrice, smiling at his messy hair and tired eyes. “Very little could make it worse. Your face, I mean.” 

“Thanks for the clarification,” he said, and he smiled back at her, sleepily. 

Bea had seen that smile before, and it made her breath catch in her throat. She was drawn sharply back to a morning not so long ago, a morning when she had been happy. A morning when it seemed like nothing could ever go wrong again. 

And then it had.

But Beatrice couldn’t think about that. She was finally making real progress towards getting home, she couldn’t afford to be distracted now. Plus, it hurt a little too much to look at Ben and know this version of him didn’t share her memories.

“Well, I guess we’ll both be failing that test on Friday,” Beatrice sighed. It had been a rough one the first time, and she couldn’t see herself doing any better on the second try. 

“Beatrice Duke, I have never seen you accept defeat so easily,” said Benedick. If Beatrice hadn’t spent the last few months hanging around him every day, she probably would’ve missed the sweetness in his voice. “If we’re clever enough to debate the merits of each Hogwarts house for an entire week, we can deal with one physics test.”

“Maybe we can,” Beatrice smiled. "We are the cleverest."

"Is that a word?"

"Never mind." 

They really had argued about the Hogwarts houses for a week, she’d almost forgotten that. And it was true that talking to Ben made studying infinitely more bearable. Was it going to mess up her timeline if she did better on the physics test in this universe? As she considered it, Beatrice got an idea.

“I could probably stand to study more before the test on Friday,” she said, trying to choose her words carefully.

“Yeah, who couldn’t?” Benedick said. “I could probably study until I’m a hundred and five, and still not get a passing grade.”

“We should.”

“What, study until we’re a hundred and five? I feel like that would be impractical.”

“No, I mean we should study. Together.”

Benedick gave her a look like he hadn’t heard her right. 

“I mean,” Beatrice rambled, “It helped to have someone to text when the problems were stupid and confusing, but it would probably just be easier to study together, right? Like, in the same building?”

Benedick was still staring at her as if he thought she was joking. 

“I… can’t,” he said.

Beatrice felt like someone had deflated a balloon in her stomach. 

“That’s okay,” she said, trying to sound like she meant it. “I didn’t-”

“No!” Benedick said quickly. “I mean, I can’t _today_ , I’ve got football practice. But, um, I could do tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow?”

“Yeah, I mean, if you’re not-”

“No, I’m not busy. Not at all.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

Class started, but Beatrice couldn’t pay attention. How could she, when she was one step closer to winning back the freaking love of her life? The Love Gods could suck it. 

Beatrice felt something nudge her hand. She looked down and saw a tiny, folded piece of notebook paper resting by her fingertips. She opened it discreetly, so her teacher couldn’t see.

 

_I guess the question is,_ where _are we going to study?_

 

Huh. She hadn’t thought about that. 

 

_I don’t know, you got any ideas?_

 

She scribbled on the other side of the paper, then passed it back to Ben. It took him a minute to respond. Finally, he passed the note back to her. He’d written his message in small letters in the very corner of the paper.

 

_My house?_

 

Oh boy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Will Thursday go well? Why is Beatrice anxious about going to Ben's house? Is "cleverest" really a word? Find out next time on, "I Am Gone Though I Am Here..."


	9. Chapter 9

 

The second she stepped through Ben’s doorway, Beatrice felt an ache of nervousness her stomach. The last time she’d been in this house…

“Sorry it’s a bit of a mess,” Ben called from the other room. “My parents are in and out a lot, and I’m pretty lazy, so there you go.”

 

_“You did say your parents were out, right?”_

_“They’re out of the country at the moment, Bea.”_

_“Are you sure?”_

_“Pretty damn sure.”_

_“No, I mean... about this?”_

_“Absolutely.”_

 

No, _no_ she was not going to think about that right now. If she let her memories overwhelm her, Beatrice thought she might start crying.

And she _hated_ crying. 

“Beatrice?” Ben asked, and Bea snapped out of her reverie. She’d been standing like a statue in the entrance way, and Ben was looking at her like she was crazy. 

“What?” Beatrice asked, dumping her bag on the floor and taking off her jacket quickly, as if moving fast now would excuse her stillness earlier. 

“I was just going to ask if you wanted something to drink,” said Ben, still eyeing her like he was concerned for her mental health.

“Uh, sure. Maybe tea?” Beatrice answered, folding up her jacket and squishing it into her bag. 

“What?” Ben looked at her like he hadn't heard right. “I thought you hated tea?” 

“I don’t hate tea,” Beatrice said, rolling her eyes. “I just said I’d rather have the power of invisibility. I’d rather own a giraffe than eat apples, but that doesn’t mean I hate apples. 

“You know, I think we might actually have some apples. Maybe I should throw one at your face for making such rude statements against my country.”

“You couldn’t hit me with an apple, I’d catch it." 

"What if I kicked it at you?"

"Have you watched yourself play football?"

"Obviously not." 

"I rest my case." 

“So, tea it is then,” Ben said, smiling slightly at her. 

_God_ , she missed this. What had it been, four days since she’d actually talked with him like this? Five? It was embarrassing really, how bantering with him filled her up, made her stomach feel all warm and bubbly like nothing else ever had. How was she going to spend entire months without him if she ever got home?

No, _when_ she got home. 

Beatrice followed Ben into the kitchen, trying not to let her mind wander. She needed to focus on being nice, being herself, being the kind of person whose cousin’s honor he would defend. Mainly that last one. 

Ben was leaning against the counter, watching the kettle heat up and drumming his fingers on a cabinet. Beatrice couldn’t help staring at him, noticing all the tiny details of his face that she’d spent years cataloging in her brain. The little dot on the side of his neck, his puffy hair that she’d run her fingers through a million times, the creases that showed up in his forehead when he was anxious. 

And then his eyes. God, she could be buried in those eyes. 

 

_“Are… are you not sure about this?”_

_“No, no I’m sure. All in. 100%.”_

_“Okay then.”_

_“Okay.”_

_“Cool cool cool.”_

_“Cool cool co—”_

 

“So, what kind of tea do you want?” Ben asked. 

“What? Oh, Earl Grey,” Bea answered, absentmindedly. 

“I didn’t even tell you what kinds there are, how did you know I have Earl Grey?”

"Lucky guess?" Beatrice said. _"Or maybe it's because I know your tea cupboard forwards and backwards_." 

“Huh,” Ben reached up to the highest shelf and pulled two teabags out of their boxes. “You want sugar?” 

“Yeah, definitely,” Bea said. It was strange having to tell Ben how she liked her tea, tea was a weirdly important aspect of their relationship. Whenever one of them felt upset, the other just sort of knew it was time to make tea. It was like some bizarre, relationship sixth sense. Beatrice thought she could probably make Benedick's tea blindfolded. "Two scoops of sugar would be great." 

Benedick stopped, his hand hovering over the sugar jar. He turned to look at her, and his face was a mask of horror. 

“ _Two scoops?_ ” He said, in the way that a normal person might say _‘You killed who?’_ “That’s not tea, that’s insanity!”

Right, she’d forgotten about this argument. Oh hell. 

“I am entitled to drink my tea with as many scoops of sugar as I want,” Beatrice said, crossing her arms defiantly. Benedick crossed his arms too, staring her down. 

“My country invented tea, so I should be able to judge what is and what isn’t acceptable—“

“Your country did not invent tea!”

“Fine, but we _perfected_ it.”

“Also debatable.” 

The tea kettle whistled tinnily, interrupting their debate.

“Fine,” Ben said, turning off the burner and pouring steaming water into their mugs, “But don’t expect me to do it for you. You can scoop your own sugar into your rubbish tea.” 

“Don’t call my tea rubbish, you’re just jealous it’s going to taste so much more delicious than yours,” said Beatrice, nudging him with her elbow as she grabbed a spoon from the silverware drawer. She felt him tense at her touch, but from the look on his face it wasn’t because he hated her. 

Beatrice happily poured two enormous scoops of sugar into her cup, while Ben made a face like every granule physically pained him. 

“Half a scoop,” he said, “That’s the most, end of story. Anything more than that is a sin against the nature of good tea.”

“Whatever you say, dickface,” said Beatrice, taking a sip of her tea. It was amazing, obviously.

It felt good to be there beside him, leaning up against the counter and bickering about pointless things. Beatrice had to resist the urge to put her head on his shoulder. 

They had spent a lot of time here, in Ben’s house. Sometimes because it was closer to school, sometimes because Ben had a bigger movie collection than Hero’s family, sometimes because Beatrice didn't want to spend more time around Leo than she had to. 

And sometimes because Ben’s parents were out of the country for the entire weekend.

 

_“Hey Ben?”_

_“Yeah?”_

_“I love you.”_

_“...I know.”_

_“Did you just Han Solo me? Now?”_

_“I did, yeah.”_

_“You dork.”_

_“Glass houses, love.”_

 

“So, you ready to enter the literal hell that is physics homework?” Ben asked with a sigh of defeat. 

“Yeah,” Beatrice mumbled. She needed the distraction. 


	10. Chapter 10

On Friday morning, Beatrice was feeling more confident than she’d felt all week. She’d spent three _entire_ hours working on homework with Ben on Thursday afternoon. It would’ve been two, but they kept getting distracted and just talking to each other. He was smiling more than she’d seen him do, laughing at her jokes (well, chuckling maybe. She had yet to get a full ‘Benedick laugh’ out of him,) and when she walked into history she could tell he’d been waiting for her. 

“Hey Beatrice,” he said, casually.

“Hey Ben,” she said, and she saw his eyes light up. Not Benedick, not dickface, _Ben._

The rest of the day went so well that by lunchtime, Beatrice was practically bouncing off the walls. She couldn’t even find it in her heart to be cross with Claudio and Pedro, though she could feel Hero’s party dangling over her like a piano waiting to drop. If everything happened the way it always had, those two would both turn out okay. 

“What’s gotten into you, Bea?” Pedro asked, “You look all… sunshiney.” 

“Oh my god, is there somebody you should be telling us about? Did you meet a boy?” Meg said, sitting up on the table and looking at Beatrice eagerly. “I know that look, tell me everything.” 

Out of the corner of her eye, Beatrice saw Ben glance up at them. 

“It’s just a nice day is all,” Beatrice said, innocently. “What, I can’t be cheerful unless it’s about some guy?” 

“You’re usually not cheerful at all,” Pedro said, smirking at her.

“That’s absolutely untrue, I’m always cheerful. I go to sleep cheerful!”

“You did wake up laughing one time, do you remember that?” Hero added from the opposite table. “You were laughing in your sleep, and it was so loud that you woke yourself up!”

That made everyone laugh. 

“You’re truly insane,” Pedro said to her. 

“Hey, you’re just mad I come up with better jokes in my dreams than you do in real life,” said Beatrice, and everyone busted up laughing again. 

Except Benedick. Beatrice looked over at him as she took a high five offered by Pedro, and saw that he looked annoyed. Gloomy, even. Sirens started going off in the back of her head. If Ben wasn’t happy, nothing was going to work out in her favor. Maybe she’d started celebrating prematurely…

Lunch ended, and everyone began packing up. Beatrice hung back, knowing that Ben usually took forever to finish putting his things away in his bag. She had to talk to him, figure out some way to cheer him up. Her mind was racing, what could she do?

“Hey, Ben,” she said, as Balthazar finished securing his guitar in it’s case. “Can I talk to you?”

“Yeah, sure,” said Ben, avoiding her eyes. 

“Listen,” Beatrice said, “do you want to help me set up for Hero’s party tomorrow?” 

Ben’s face went from gloomy to surprised so fast it was like a switch had been flipped in his brain. 

“Really?” he asked, and he sounded so hopeful that Beatrice just wanted to reach forward and hug him. 

“Yeah, I could definitely use the help." She said. "I told Hero she didn’t have to do all the food preparation by herself, but I forgot that meant I would have to do most of it.”

Ben grinned at her, but then his face fell. 

“Is Pedro coming?” He asked, coolly. 

“What?” Beatrice said. Where had that come from? “No, Pedro’s not coming. I only really needed one other person’s help, and I figured you owe me one after I helped you through literal physics hell.” 

Benedick’s grin returned. 

“Yeah, I suppose I could clear my busy schedule and come help out. What time?”

“Around 3 tomorrow?”

“Okay, I’ll see you then,” Ben said, hoisting his backpack onto his shoulder. 

“You’ll see me now, we’ve got class in about two minutes.”

“Crap,” said Ben, looking down at his watch. “I guess I’ll see you at school!” and he booked it out of the courtyard.

“And I’ll play the fool,” Beatrice finished quietly, before running after him.

 

***

 

“You promise you’re not just stalking me home?”

“I’m not stalking you! I told you I left my jersey on the football pitch, I’m not lying.”

“So how do you know that Leo has it?”

“Because this is definitely not the first time I’ve forgotten my jersey on the football pitch.” 

Beatrice laughed, smiling broadly in the afternoon sunlight. They were walking to Bea’s house after school, and so far it had been quite the adventure. They’d barely made it over the stupid hill (or Mount Doom, as Ben had started calling it back in the real world. “ _Why didn’t we think of it before, Bea?”_ ) and now they were only a few blocks away from Ben’s lonely, forgotten jersey. 

“I thought that English test was awful, didn’t you?” Bea asked, knowing full well what he was going to say. She’d forgotten about it in the aftermath of Hero’s party, but the test that Friday had been a massacre. 

“Oh my god, don’t get me started,” Ben said, running his hands down his face. “It was ridiculous! I swear he handed us the wrong tests.”

“That’s impossible, we’re his only class reading Hamlet.”

“Well then there’s just one answer,” Ben turned to Bea, looking dead serious. “We have the worst English teacher in the history of time.”

“Of course! It’s all so clear now!” Beatrice said, putting the back of her hand on her head like a swooning lady. 

“Seriously though, he’s the worst.”

“Definitely the worst.” said Beatrice, unable to contain her grin. Guess who wasn’t the worst anymore? The blonde girl smiling like an idiot, that’s who.

When they reached the Duke’s house, they found Leo sitting in the living room watching a football game. 

“Hi Bea,” he said, as they walked in the door. “Ben! Hey, I’ve got something for you.”

“I know, I know, that’s why I’m here,” Ben said, as Leo sprung up from the couch and ran into the other room. He came back a few seconds later, jersey in hand. 

“You’ve got to keep better track of this thing,” Leo said, “I don’t know how you keep forgetting it, I swear you just like coming to my house.” 

“Sorry, yeah, thanks Leo,” Ben said quickly, his cheeks reddening.

It was like a million lightbulbs had turned on in her head. Beatrice couldn’t believe she hadn’t caught on sooner, of _course_ he’d been forgetting it on purpose, the dork. She wondered if making out with him right now would be a bad idea. 

Before she had the chance to act on her impulse, Ben was halfway out the door. 

“Hey, tomorrow at 3?” Bea called after him.

“Wouldn’t miss it!” Ben answered, and he sprinted away down the block. 

Tomorrow. As she watched Benedick get farther and farther away, it was like he took all her cheerfulness with him. Suddenly, she remembered what tomorrow really meant. It meant betrayal. It meant tears. It meant everyone’s lives changing forever. 

It was her ultimatum.

_ Fuck.  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Something wicked this way comes...
> 
> A couple things:  
> 1) To everyone who has been following this story so far, you are all incredibly lovely. Internet hugs and invisible chocolates to all of you!  
> 2) I've been accepting writing prompts on my tumblr, jesuisdansserdaigle.tumblr.com, so if there's a drabble you'd like me to write, feel free to leave me an ask! I might not be able to get to them super quick, (it's almost finals week,) but I will definitely respond to all the ones I get!  
> Lots of love,  
> -Ravenclawsome


	11. Chapter 11

Beatrice couldn’t sleep. How could she, when she knew exactly what was coming when she closed her eyes? She had tried everything she knew of to feel sleepy; listening to audiobooks, drinking hot cocoa, even counting sheep, but it was no use. 

She sat up, pushing her blankets off her legs and hugging her knees up to her chest. This was pointless, she was never going to sleep. 

She knew what she would normally do in this situation, but right now it was out of the question.

 

_“Hello?”_

_“Hey, it’s me.”_

_“Bea? Oh my god, what time is it?”_

_“Sorry, were you sleeping?”_

_“No, I was exploring the farthest reaches of Asia.”_

_“You don’t have to be sassy about it.”_

_“I can be sassy! I just woke up!”_

_“That’s true, I would probably be sassier.”_

_“You definitely would be. So what’s up?”_

_“I can’t sleep.”_

_“Yeah, neither can I.”_

_“Shut up.”_

_“Okay, no, I’m sorry. You were saying?”_

_“I don’t know. Just, thinking about scary things.”_

_“Like Daleks?”_

_“Like the future.”_

_“Oh yeah, that is kind of a scary thing.”_

_“I mean, maybe this isn’t something we should talk about at- what time is it?”_

_“It’s one in the morning, love.”_

_“Right. Maybe we should just talk about this some other time.”_

_“Yeah, but when? We haven’t really, you know, actually talked about it. Ever.”_

_“I know. We will.”_

_“Bea…”_

_“Yeah?”_

_“…”_

_“Are you still there Ben?”_

_“Yeah, I’m here.”_

_“Hey, I love you. Thanks for answering my crazy morning phone calls.”_

_“I love you too, Bea. I will always be there to answer crazy phone calls.”_

_“...Always?”_

_“Yeah, always.”_

 

Beatrice got up out of bed and walked to the bathroom. She splashed water on her face, wishing its warmth could help fill the space left inside her body. She was so nervous, so scared that she felt like the hollowed out shell of a person. The slightest breeze would blow her away, the tiniest prick would send her crumbling to the ground. 

As she stood upright, she saw her reflection staring back at her. It was odd to see her hair so short, she hadn’t realized how much it had grown since she’d stopped vlogging. As she pushed a strand of it behind her ear, she noticed what was sitting behind her.

And then she got an idea. 

Slowly, Beatrice turned around, stepped into the bathtub, and lowered herself in until she was sitting with her legs scrunched up against her chest. It felt like a stupid thing to do, and it would definitely be hard to explain to Hero or Leo if they walked in on her, but she didn’t care. She closed her eyes, snuggling down against the porcelain and trying to get as comfortable as she possibly could. 

It felt so empty without him there. Beatrice wasn’t sure how it had happened exactly, but bathtubs had sort of become their space. Sometimes they would bring Ben’s laptop with them and watch movies, other times they would just bicker about everything until one of them had to go home. She was used to having pillows beneath her, arms around her, feeling the rhythm of his breath until she almost fell asleep. 

Now it was just a cold, uncomfortable space full of memories she might not ever return to. Shivering a little, Beatrice pulled herself out of the tub. She tip-toed to her bed, grabbed her coziest blankets and pillows, and returned to the bathroom. 

She made herself a little bird’s nest in the bathtub, snuggling down into the warmth of cotton and fleece until her breathing became slow and regular. As Beatrice finally drifted off to sleep, she could almost imagine Benedick huddled beside her. 

 

_You’re vivacious_

_Absolutely_

_I love you_

 

_Always_

 

_“Tomorrow,”_ she thought, hazily. _“I’ll see him tomorrow.”_


	12. Chapter 12

 “You okay?” Ben asked, his arms full of paper plates and plastic forks. “You look like you’re about to pass out or something.” 

Beatrice blinked, pulling her mind away from thoughts of bathtubs and parties. She’d almost forgotten about the fruit she was supposed to be washing and mixing together, the tap had been left running for over a minute. Beatrice turned it off quickly, rubbing her temples and trying to feel less sick.  She had been headachy and out of it all day, although she couldn’t _imagine_ why. 

“I’m fine,” she said, for what felt like the fiftieth time that week. One of these days, she was actually going to mean it. Ben gave her a look, but apparently decided not to push the subject. 

There were three hours left until the party. Three. Freaking. Hours. Every part of her was panicking. Three hours until the event that had changed her life, changed all of her friends lives, and she was the only one who knew about it. She was not fine. 

“Leo said he doesn’t have anything else for me to do,” Ben said, bouncing back into the room with an energy that was the polar opposite of her own. “You need any help cutting up strawberries?” 

Beatrice’s gut reaction was to say no. A good part of her felt grouchy and wanted to stay away from people, especially excited, happy people. 

But Benedick wasn’t other people. 

“Sure,” she said, trying to smile and not quite getting there. “Go for it.” 

She handed him a knife from the drawer and went back to washing blueberries. The two of them worked side by side, just close enough that they occasionally bumped elbows. It actually calmed her down a little, having him there. It reminded her of the time she and Ben had helped Hero get ready for a christmas party. 

 

_“Hey, Team Blessed, are you finished with the cheese plate?”_

_“Not quite.”_

_“You’ve been working on it for half an hour!”_

_“We got distracted!”_

_“Bickering distracted or making out distracted?”_

_“Bit of both.”_

 

 

“Sooo, sixteenth birthday. That’s a big one.” Ben said, in the voice he always used when he was stretching to think of a conversation topic. 

“Yep,” Beatrice said, her mind still on that christmas afternoon. It felt years away, like something that might’ve happened in a dream. 

They fell into silence again. Ben seemed to be cutting strawberries with a little more vigor than was probably necessary. He tossed one into the fruit bowl so forcefully that it bounced back out and hit Beatrice in the face. 

“Sorry!” he said quickly, but Beatrice brushed him off. 

“It’s fine,” she said, for the fifty first time that week. “Just don’t throw them in like you’re condemning them to hell, or something.” She wiped strawberry juice off her face with the sleeve of her shirt and dumped her blueberries into the fruit bowl. Ben still had a few strawberries to cut up, but it seemed like some of his crazy energy was gone. 

Beatrice’s brain kicked into gear. “ _Hey!”_ It shouted at her. _“You’re supposed to be winning him over, remember?”_

Right. 

“Do you remember when Pedro had that party at the beginning of summer, after the football game?” Beatrice ventured, grabbing a banana and starting to chop it up into the fruit bowl. Ben didn’t say anything. “You know,” she pressed, “when we were fourt—“

“Yeah, Beatrice, I remember,” Ben said, slamming his knife down on the counter. He turned to face her, and she could see that his excited demeanor was completely gone. “My question is, why do _you_ remember?”

“What? Oh my god, not this again.” Beatrice said, “I just do, okay? Why would I forget that summer?”

“Because you’ve come here every summer for years and years!” Ben said, frustration in every syllable. “Your memories should just blend together like a big Auckland smoothie, but all you ever talk about is that one stupid summer. Like you actually cared.” 

“What is that supposed to mean?” Beatrice said, astonished. She had argued with Ben enough to know that right now, he was unusually angry. Where had this even come from? One minute they were just talking, and the next…

“It doesn’t matter,” said Benedick, throwing the last strawberry into the bowl and grabbing his bag off the dining room table. “I’m going home, see you in a few hours.” 

He was out the door before she could get a word in. 

Beatrice stood there, still holding half a banana stupidly in her hand. It was like everything she had built over the past week was falling down around her. Where had any of that come from? What did he mean, “ _like you actually cared?”_

She followed him out the door in five seconds flat. He was already halfway across the lawn, his hands shoved deep in his pockets. 

“HEY!” she shouted. He turned back to look at her, apparently surprised she’d come after him. “What do you mean, _like I actually cared_?” 

“What do you think?” He replied. 

“Oh my god, would I be asking if I knew?” 

“You never cared, Beatrice.” Ben said, “About that summer, about anything that happened.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” said Beatrice. “Why wouldn’t I care about that summer?” They were only standing a few meters apart, but their voices were getting so loud they could’ve been shouting across the football pitch. 

“Because you’ve never talked about it! Before this week, you were keen to forget it had ever happened.”

“I was not! How could I forget the one summer when we were actually—“ 

“Friends?” Ben’s voice was colder than she’d heard it a long time. “Don’t mess with me Beatrice, I was never really your friend. You hung out with me when you got bored with Pedro, and then as soon as he got interesting again you went straight back to ignoring me, just like you always do.”

Beatrice couldn’t believe these words were coming out of his mouth. Benedick had never, _ever_ said any of this to her. Was this the way he had always felt, even in her world?

“Ben,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady. “That’s not what happened.”

“You’re doing it right now!” Said Ben, pointing accusingly at her. “Pedro asks you out, and you feel weird about it, so you start hanging out with me. But the second you two start being friends again, you throw me back under the bus. Well I’m not doing that again, Bea. Go find someone else to be your throwaway friend.” 

His voice broke, and Beatrice felt like someone was ripping her heart into pieces.

Then he crossed the street, got into his car and drove away, leaving Beatrice standing speechless on the front lawn. 


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: This chapter depicts Hero's birthday party. Any and all trigger warnings that applied to that video may apply to this chapter.

The party happened, just like it always had. 

Beatrice didn’t remember it like a normal memory, it was almost as if she’d been watching the whole thing through Ursula’s camera. It helped to think about it in segments.

Hero had blown out her candles. 

Everyone cheered.

Claudio came forward.

_Go around behind my back._

_Robbie of all people._

_Fucking slut._

Hero struggled to get any words out, she was in shock. 

Claudio stormed away.

Beatrice yelled at Pedro like she was reciting lines from a play.

_Pedro, what the fuck? Sort this out!_

_You’re not always right, you know!_

And then Beatrice couldn’t take it any more. She looked at Pedro and she knew he was in a bad place. It was because she had been so awful to him that he was here now, taking Claudio’s side. She knew that deep down, he was still her friend. 

But then Beatrice remembered all the things he’d said to Ben. 

_“Beatrice has got you on a tight leash.”_

_“It’s not like you even like her.”_

_“It was a joke.”_

It made her so angry. So fucking angry. She wanted to scream and claw and hit something hard enough that the pain in her body would overtake the pain inside her head. 

She had spent a long, frustrating week not being able to say the things she wanted to, having to act like everything was normal and having nobody to blame for it but herself. There had been a quiet rage building up inside her, and she had to take it out on the closest person who was pissing her off.

Fuck it.

She reeled back and punched Pedro in the face. 

Then she grabbed Hero by the shoulders and steered her away from the shocked crowd, talking to her quietly.

_Are you okay?_

_It’s going to be fine._

_Come on, let’s go._

She pulled Hero into the living room, sat her down on the couch and tried to comfort her. 

She waited, wiping Hero’s tears away with the sleeve of her dress. 

Waited to hear a voice.

His voice. 

To feel his hand on her shoulder and know that he was on her side. 

But she didn’t. 

And then Beatrice started to cry too. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise. See you on Thursday.


	14. Chapter 14

Hero had finally gone to sleep, sniffling and hiccuping until her breathing became regular, but Beatrice was still crying. Tear tracks lined her face, her eyes were red and puffy, and no matter what she tried she couldn’t stop her hands from shaking. 

Ursula and Balthazar hadn’t known what to do with her after the party. They’d probably expected her to be furious and shouting, not curled up on the floor sobbing her eyes out.  She couldn’t help it, every frustration and worry that’d been building up inside her had come spilling out through her tear ducts, and she had no way to turn them off.  Balthy and Ursula had helped her and Hero up the stairs, and then Beatrice had told them to leave. They’d tried to protest, but she was insistent.

She couldn’t be around other people right now. Every time she got close to pulling herself together, the whole evening hit her like a punch in the face.

She was angry with everyone; Claudio for hurting Hero all over again, Pedro for letting him, Leo for believing them, John for not being able to grow up, and everyone else for leaving her alone in this house with her cousin.

Most of all, she was angry with herself. An entire week to change the past, and what had she done with it? Tried hopelessly to do something good for herself, instead of doing everything she could to prevent Hero from being called a slut in front of all her friends. What kind of a monster was she? She’d rationalized it, said it was better for everyone if the party just happened like it always had, but how could she possibly know that? Seeing it all unfold before her, knowing she might’ve been able to stop it, Beatrice wanted to scream. 

She couldn’t be angry with Ben. She wanted to be, she wanted to scratch his name from her brain and pretend he was just another jerk who hadn’t bothered to stick around to see if Hero was okay, but she couldn’t. It wasn’t his fault he hadn’t fallen in love with her. It wasn’t really anyone’s fault.

As she sat curled up on Hero’s bed, the memories she’d been ignoring all week came trickling to the front of her mind. She sunk into them, sunk so deeply that Beatrice almost felt she was drowning. Pedro’s party, graduation, everything. She didn’t have the strength to keep them out of focus anymore, even though she knew thinking about them would only make her feel worse. There was no part of her left to protest.

 

***

 

_They hadn’t planned to do it. Well, not exactly. They’d skirted around the idea, poked at it with their words, but neither of them had ever really addressed it._

_Then Ben got accepted to university, and everything changed._

_Beatrice knew that was his plan, but the idea of him leaving- actually leaving Auckland, had never felt more tangible. She’d tried to convince him to come with her on her gap year, and he’d been all for it._

_“You know me,” he’d said, squeezing her hand tightly in his. “I’d follow you anywhere.”_

_But his parents had said no. They’d been very sweet about it, but she could tell they didn’t like the idea._

_“You’re such a young couple,” they’d said. “We’d be worried sick about you two every day. There’s no telling what kind of trouble you could get into.” She knew they were mostly talking about pickpockets and dark alleyways, but she had a feeling there were a few other things on their minds._

_Well, the joke was on them._

_Because the Sunday before graduation, Beatrice had called Ben._

 

_“Hey, I love you. Thanks for answering my crazy morning phone calls.”_

_“I love you too, Bea. I will always be there to answer crazy phone calls.”_

_“...Always?”_

_“Yeah, always.”_

_“Ben?”_

_“Bea?”_

_“Are your parents home?”_

_“Uh, no. No they are not.”_

_“Can I… I mean, I know it’s early, but do you think…”_

_“Yeah?”_

_“Can I come over?”_

_“…Absolutely.”_

 

_So the week leading up to graduation had started out well. Amazingly, unimaginably well. Beatrice felt like she could run marathons, climb mountains, dive deep into the ocean._

_But the weekend ended, and the euphoria faded. The truth took its place._

_And the truth was that Ben was leaving. A few months from now he would be going off to Wellington, and Beatrice wasn’t going with him._

_“I really won’t be that far away,” he said to her on Monday. “And I’ll be here all summer, I’m not leaving anytime soon.”_

_“But you are,” Beatrice insisted. “Comparatively, you might as well be leaving tomorrow.”_

_“Come on, you know that’s a stretch.”_

_“Not really.”_

_“Bea, we’re together now, let’s just be together. We don’t have to think about the future yet.”_

_“It’s too late for that,” she said, more to herself than to him. But she looked into his eyes and saw the love there, and she couldn’t stay sad forever._

_On Tuesday, Ben spent a good part of lunch taking about university with Pedro and Balthy. Most of Bea’s friends were going right to a new school, she was one of the few people in her class who had decided to travel. She watched Ben gesticulating excitedly about the dorms, and she laughed when he nearly fell off the bench they were sitting on._

_As Ben talked, Beatrice couldn’t help but imagine the conversations he’d be having in a few months. He’d make friends, she didn’t doubt that. Then he’d start classes, complain about his homework, maybe go to a few parties. He’d have a whole slew of new experiences coming at him every day._

_And she realized with a jolt that none of them would include her._

_They’d talk on the phone, they’d probably have Skype conversations, but she would be intangible. Everyone else in his life would become so much more real, so much more immediate. There were people in Wellington that she’d talked to all the time a year ago, people she’d really liked. Now, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d heard from them._

_Beatrice knew that Ben loved her. There were a dozen videos on Youtube and a million other things that could prove that. Still…_

_Benedick could tell something was wrong. On Wednesday, he pulled her into a side hallway after class and asked her if she was okay. Beatrice shrugged, she honestly didn’t know. He tried to press the issue, but the warning bell interrupted him._

_“I’ve got to go to class,” she said, leaning forward and kissing him on the cheek. “I’ll talk to you later.” She pulled away, feeling her hand slip gently out of his. His fingers had tightened slightly, like he didn’t want to let her go, but he had._

_The two of them had always fed off each other’s energy. When one of them was angry, the other would get angrier. When one of them was happy, it was usually because of something the other had done._

_So that day at lunch, their entire group was treated to two nervous, grumpy people who didn’t know what to say to each other._

_“Did you guys hear Mumford and Sons is coming here on tour?” Hero asked, causing Balthazar to nearly drop his ukulele._

_“Are you serious?” he said, his eyes wide. “When? Where?”_

_“Quick, Hero! Before he explodes!” Pedro laughed, looking over at his boyfriend with secondhand excitement._

_“They’ll be in Auckland sometime in February,” Hero said. “We should definitely go!”_

_But the senior’s faces had all gone grim._

_“We’ll be in Wellington,” Ben said._

_“Most of us,” Bea added._

_“Right,” said Hero, giving Bea and Ben a look. “I’m so sorry, I forgot. Maybe you could still make the trip down?”_

_“Yeah, maybe,” Balthazar said, looking doubtful._

_“You guys could still go without us, if we can’t get away from school,” said Ben._

_“We don’t need your permission,” Bea said, sharply._

_“That’s not what I meant.”_

_“I might be abroad by then, doing exciting things. I’m not just going to sit around, twiddling my thumbs while you all go off to school.”_

_“I know you’re not coming with us, you don’t have to keep reminding me.”_

_Nobody seemed to know what to say. They were used to Bea and Ben bickering, obviously, but this was different. This felt wrong._

_Then the bell rang, and Beatrice bolted from the courtyard before anyone could talk to her._

_She spent most of class feeling miserable. She was completely useless in her group presentation, which was unfortunate because she was the only one who really knew what she was talking about._

_Beatrice was so distracted after class that she didn’t notice the little piece of paper taped to her locker until she was right up next to it._

 

_“Doubt thou the stars are fire,_

_Doubt that the sun doth move,_

_Doubt truth to be a liar,_

_But never doubt that I love.”_

 

_Beatrice felt like the cloud hanging over her head had been parted by sunlight. She tugged the note off her locker, and found Benedick at his._

_“You stole this from Hamlet,” she said, holding up the note._

_“Well, yeah, maybe a bit,” Ben said, smiling at her._

_“You realize Hamlet and Ophelia don’t stay together, right? And then they both die?”_

_“Pssh, details.”_

_Beatrice couldn’t help it, she reached up and pulled him into a kiss. At that moment, feeling her hands in his hair and his breath on her lips, she thought everything might be okay._

 

_Thursday sucked._

_“Hey, you’re here,” Ben said that morning at Bea’s locker._

_“Of course I’m here, why wouldn’t I be?”_

_“Well I- I don’t know. You weren’t answering your phone.”_

_“What?” Beatrice took her phone out of her pocket to check it, and remembered that it was dead. “Sorry, it’s been out of power since yesterday, I forgot. What were you calling me about?”_

_“Nothing,” Ben said. “It wasn’t important.”_

_But it must’ve been, because Ben seemed moody for the rest of the day. Bea asked around for a phone charger, but nobody had one._

_“You’re sure it wasn’t important?” She asked him at lunch._

_“It’s nothing Bea, don’t worry about it.”_

_It definitely seemed like something. They didn’t talk about it again until after school, when they were both walking out to Ben’s car._

_“Do you have any homework?” Ben asked._

_“Not really,” said Bea. “We’ve only got one day of school left. I think my homework is to stay alive long enough to graduate.”_

_“Shouldn’t be too hard,” Ben said, shifting his bag from one shoulder to the other. “You want to come over later and watch a movie?”_

_“Hella yes,” Beatrice said, but then she remembered.“Shit, wait. I think I’m supposed to have dinner with Hero and some of her friends.”_

_“Oh. You mean like Ursula?”_

_“No, some people she met in her art class, new students I think?” Beatrice said, opening the passenger door to Ben’s car. “She keeps trying to get me to meet them, it’s like she thinks I need replacement friends or something.”_

_It was the wrong thing to say._

_“That’s great,” Benedick said as he got in the driver’s seat and slammed the door behind him. “Are any of them english? I hear you’ve got a thing for British guys.”_

_“Ben, what the hell.”_

_“Sorry, that was stupid.”_

_“No, seriously,” Beatrice said, grabbing his hand as he went to put the key in the ignition. “You’ve been annoyed all day, why won’t you tell me what’s wrong?”_

_“Because it’s nothing,” Ben said. “It’s stupid. It’ll make me sound like an awful person.”_

_“Ben, come on. I have seen you at your worst. You called me a bitchface on Youtube and I still like you.”_

_“Fine,” said Ben, taking the keys with his other hand and lacing his fingers into hers. “I was mad that you didn’t call me back.”_

_“What?” Beatrice hadn’t been expecting that. “But my phone was dead!”_

_“I know, I told you it was stupid.”_

_“So it wasn’t the message that was important, it was just that I didn’t answer my phone?”_

_“Yeah.”_

_Beatrice leaned back in her seat, confused. So much information was buzzing around her head, and she had no idea how to address it._

_“Why the hell did my dead phone bug you so much?”_

_“Because I thought you were mad at me.” he said, avoiding her gaze. “I thought that you were pissed off and avoiding my calls, and I didn’t know what I’d done.”_

_“Oh Ben, come on,” she said, bumping his shoulder with hers. “That is some passive aggressive bullshit that I would not pull.” She smiled, but he stared at her with his eyebrows raised._

_“Are you kidding? Bea, you’ve spent the past week not talking to me. Ever since…” He trailed off. He was looking at her so intently, but Beatrice couldn’t meet his gaze. “I keep asking you if you’re okay, and you always find some excuse to avoid the question.”_

_“We don’t have to talk about it.”_

_“Beatrice, you’re doing it right now! Look at me, love…”_

_It was the ‘love’ that did it. Beatrice turned her head slowly towards him until their eyes met. He looked so worried…_

_Beatrice leaned forward until their foreheads touched. She closed her eyes, trying to hold onto every detail. She wanted to remember what it felt like to be so close to him._

_“Bea?”_

_“Yeah?”_

_“Are you okay?”_

_“...I don’t know.”_

 

_The week ended, and suddenly Beatrice was no longer a high school student. When the final bell rang on Friday afternoon, Ben came up behind her and took her hand._

_“Hey, we did it.” he said, quietly._

_“Yay us,” she replied._

_They held hands all the way out of the building, until they had to part ways._

_“See you tomorrow?” Ben asked._

_“Yeah, I’ll see you.”_

_“I love you,” he said softly, just as Beatrice started to pull away. She turned back to look at his anxious face. There were so many things she wanted to tell him. That she was sorry for everything that had happened that week, that things were going to be okay, that part of her really wanted to follow him to Wellington and get a job there instead of staying in Auckland._

_But instead she said, “I love you too,” kissed him on the cheek, and walked away. As her hand slipped out of his, Beatrice thought she felt something break between them._

_Saturday was a blur of family, friends, graduation robes and ceremony. Her parents took some pictures with their old polaroid camera, and Bea tacked them up on her bulletin board before Pedro’s party._

_She spent half an hour in her room that afternoon with her head in her hands, holding back tears. It was too much. She wanted to feel excited to go abroad, to find a job and spend time with Hero and save up for her adventure, but it was hard. She was going to miss him. All of them, really. Ben was leaving first, but when she went off into the world she would be leaving everyone she loved far behind. Could a person be excited and scared and miserable and ecstatic all at once?_

_And then the party. The party where everything had gone wrong._

_Beatrice had lost Ben in the crowd, and she was trying to adjust to the feeling of being alone at a party. God knew she would have to get used to it soon. Usually at parties she and Ben ended up curled together on a couch somewhere, laughing at all the drunk people while simultaneously getting a little tipsy themselves._

_Beatrice had crossed that line at least an hour ago. Drunk Benedick was a little goofier, a little more contemplative, and a lot less filtered than regular Ben. But drunk Beatrice? Drunk Beatrice was mean._

_So when she finally spotted Ben across the room, talking animatedly to someone she didn’t know, Beatrice stayed out of his line of sight. She couldn’t see him, but his voice carried._

_“Yeah, my girlfriend’s staying in Auckland, and then she’s traveling,” he said, catching Beatrice’s full attention. “I mean, she could’ve come with me to university, but I guess she’s got more exciting things to do.”_

_Beatrice’s ears burned. That absolute, pig-headed, dick._

_She pushed angrily through the crowd and found Benedick with his back to her._

_“Hey, asshole,” she said, maybe too loudly. Ben turned to face her, and she could see the panic in his eyes. “Next time you want to talk shit about me, make sure I’m not close enough to hear you.”_

_Beatrice pushed back through the crowd, towards the door. How could he? She’d been tearing herself up all week thinking about being away from him, and he talked about it like she didn’t even care! Like staying in Auckland had just been more convenient, like being with him every day wasn’t exciting enough for her. Screw him._

_She could hear Ben approaching her quickly through the ocean of people, calling her name, but she just walked faster._

_Maybe he would start to feel the way she felt. Overwhelmed, lost, trying desperately to hold onto something that kept moving farther and farther away._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The comments I've gotten in the past week on this story have been overwhelming and amazing. You are all too lovely for words! My unending thanks for reading, and never fear, I WILL see you on Monday.


	15. Chapter 15

Beatrice felt hot tears running down her cheeks, and hiccuped between her sobs. This was it. She had missed the deadline. She was Marty McFly, erased from existence forever. She would never see her friends again, never see her room the way she’d left it the night of graduation, never kiss Ben in that way they sometimes did, like neither of them could believe it was really happening. 

What was she going to do now? There was always her back up plan, buy fifty cats and hole up in her house with snacks and a Netflix subscription. She supposed there was nothing to stop her from trying to win Ben’s affections again, but did she want to be with a version of him that sided with Claudio? That wasn’t the Benedick she loved. 

Maybe she should go abroad for good, live in the south of France with her cats, maybe meet some french guy…

No. Her whole body shivered at the thought. It was Benedick or nobody, she’d known that for a long time. She’d never been in love with anyone else. Hell, she’d never even _kissed_ anyone else. 

Beatrice couldn’t think about it, couldn’t even begin to comprehend everything that had been lost in the past two hours. She wiped her eyes furiously and tried to calm herself down. Then she looked over at Hero, and she felt like falling to pieces all over again. 

She had to get out of this room. 

Going to her room would be just as bad, so Beatrice decided to go downstairs. Maybe there was a closet or something that would be so dark and unfamiliar that it wouldn't remind her of the party at all. 

As she walked, she tried to make a plan. Sure, her plans didn’t have a great history of working out, but what else was she supposed to do? _“Take this step by step Beatrice, you can do this,”_ she thought, pretending to be calmer than she really was. _“Thinking about the future and tomorrow and scary things like that won’t do you any good, just concentrate on right now.”_

The first step was probably getting something to eat. She’d been so nervous all day she’d barely eaten at all, and she had a suspicion that her headache was thirst related. Maybe she could get to the kitchen without looking too hard at the mess left after the party, dig something out of the fridge, and then make some— 

Tea. 

She had reached the bottom of the stairs, and there was a cup of tea sitting on the dining room table. 

Before Beatrice could even begin to process what that meant, Benedick walked into view holding a second cup. 

_Benedick._

He looked up and saw her, standing frozen at the foot of the stairs like the world was spinning too fast. 

“Hey,” he said, nervously. 

Beatrice couldn’t take her eyes off him, she just stood there staring and wondering if he would disappear if she looked away.

“I— uh, I made tea.” Benedick said, gesturing to the mug with his free hand. “I thought maybe you could use it. I tried to clear up a bit too, there were plates and everything all around the house. How’s Hero?” Beatrice couldn’t speak. She could barely think. 

_Benedick, Benedick, Benedick._

“You… you came back.” she said, finally. 

Benedick looked down at the floor, uncomfortably. 

“I shouldn’t have left.” he said. “I went with them, tried to make them— I don’t know, come back and apologize or something, but they’re being ridiculous. But that’s not really— whatever. And, um… I’m sorry about before the party.” He sounded like he’d rehearsed these words in his head, like he’d been waiting to apologize to her all evening.  “I shouldn’t have just exploded like that. It wasn’t fair to you, and it was stupid. The point is, I should’ve stayed and helped, and I didn’t, so… yeah. I came back.” 

Beatrice felt like bursting into tears all over again, but something in her gut stopped her. She was tired of crying. 

Instead, she walked over to the table and sat down, pulling her cup towards her with a shaky hand. Benedick sat down next to her, and they contemplated their tea in silence. 

“Hero’s fine.” Beatrice said, her voice cracking slightly. “Well, she’s actually pretty shit at the moment, but she’s going to be fine.” She drank some of her tea, feeling its warmth in her chest and her hands. He’d put two scoops of sugar in it, the bastard.  

“And, how are you?” Ben asked. 

He had asked her this before. He didn’t know it, but he had. What felt like hundreds of times in the weeks after Hero’s party, he was always there with the same questions. _How’s Hero? How are you?_ It was something the Benedick she knew would say. 

The Benedick that loved her. 

“I did care.” she said, abruptly. This world was giving her a chance, and damned if she wasn’t going to take it. Ben looked confused. 

“Sorry, what—“

“I cared, Ben.” she repeated, looking him straight in the eye. “When we were fourteen, I cared about our friendship, and about you, and about everything. I really, _really_ liked you, actually.” It felt so good to just say it, to let all her built up teenage angst spill out into the room. “I only stopped hanging out with you because I didn’t think you felt the same way, it didn’t have _anything_ to do with Pedro. I thought thatIwas the throwaway friend, so I left.” 

For once, Benedick looked like he was at a loss for words. Beatrice waited, hoping against hope that this was going to work. 

“You… liked me?” Ben said. The disbelief in his voice made Beatrice smile for what felt like the first time in forever. 

“Don’t let it get to your head, dickface.” She said, nudging him with her shoulder and still smiling down at her tea. 

“Why didn’t you say something?” Ben asked, looking like he’d just had all the secrets of the universe revealed to him. “You’re telling me we’ve been arguing for years because we’re both a bit shit at communication?” That actually made Beatrice laugh. 

“Communication is key,” she said, to the benefit of no one besides herself. 

“I don’t believe it,” Ben said. “I’m a human disaster.” 

“Don’t be too hard on yourself, neither of us knows what the hell we’re doing,” said Beatrice. They clinked their mugs of tea together and drank.

“You should have seen Pedro,” Ben said, smiling mischievously at her. “He looks like he might’ve been in a bar fight or something.” 

“Oh my god,” Beatrice covered her face with her hands, unable to keep herself from laughing despite it all. “That was so uncalled for, people are going to think I’m insane.”

“It’s a little late to be worrying about that, love,” Benedick said, taking another sip of tea. 

_Love._ Beatrice watched him as he put his mug back down on the table. This wasn’t the Benedick who had proclaimed his hatred for her in a bathtub on Youtube, or the cold, unfamiliar Ben who had called her “party princess” a week ago. This was how she talked with the real Ben. Her Ben. Just hearing his voice made Bea miss him so much she could barely stand it, even though he was sitting right beside her.

“What would you say,” Benedick ventured, a little hesitantly, “if I told you that I might have also liked you, but I didn’t really understand it at the time because I was fourteen, and an idiot?” 

Beatrice felt her heart jump.  There was a tiny, impossible chance that whatever she said next would bring her home. She looked in his eyes, and she could almost see the love there. This was it. 

Beatrice smiled at him. 

“I’d say we’re both idiots,” she said, softly. 

And maybe it was something in her smile, or their shared confessions, or the accumulation of everything that had happened in the past week, but Benedick Hobbes chose that moment to lean forward and kiss her. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What, you guys didn't think this was going to be a sad story, did you? ; )  
> See you next time for the final chapter...


	16. The End

_Oh lady, oh baby, I really think you’re somethin’_

 

Beatrice didn’t want to open her eyes, it was far, far too early.

 

_I used to think Cupid was pretty fucking stupid_

 

The song was stuck in her head, she wished she could just turn it off and go back to sleep.

 

_I don’t know what’s going on, but I’ve written you a song._

 

It wasn’t in her head. It was coming from somewhere else, somewhere in her room. 

 

_And if there’s a god above_

 

Beatrice’s eyes shot open.

 

_He’d be the god of love_

 

She pushed herself upright, and immediately felt her head start to spin. She winced, scrunching her eyes together and putting her head in her hands. By the time she felt good enough to open her eyes again, her phone had stopped ringing. 

Ugh, why did she feel so awful? It was almost like… it was almost like she had a hangover. 

And then Beatrice began to take in her surroundings. 

She could see the bulletin board from her position in bed by the windows. There were the pictures from graduation; Meg and Hero sandwiching Beatrice in a hug, her parents smiling broadly while she waved her diploma in the air, Benedick kissing her while their friends looked on in mock disgust. 

“I’m back,” Beatrice whispered, hardly daring to believe it. “I’m BACK!” An uncontrollable grin spread across her face, and she scrambled out of bed to run around her room in delight. She couldn’t stop looking at all the things that were back the way they were supposed to be. She counted all eight Frankenstein books at least ten times, just to make sure there was still one missing. She ran to her closet and dug out Ben’s flannel shirt, hugging it tightly and putting it on over her pajamas. She practically sprinted over to her end table to get her phone, hangover be damned, just so she could call him and hear his voice and tell him how much she—

Missed him. She’d forgotten about the call she missed. Or rather, the five missed calls that showed up on her phone when she turned it on. 

Shit. 

There was a message. Beatrice hesitated. What if it was awful? After everything she’d been through to get back home, what if he didn’t want to be with her anymore? With all the crap she’d put him through, she couldn’t say she’d blame him. 

Maybe he’d be better off if...

No. Fuck that. She was sleep deprived and stressed out and thinking ridiculous things. She’d worked too hard to get here, so she had to pull herself together and just listen to what Ben had to say. Besides, if he was going to break up with her, he wouldn’t do it over a fucking phone message. Beatrice dialed her voicemail, held the phone up to her ear and waited. 

_“Hey, it’s me. Again.”_ Benedick. Even though she’d heard his voice for the past week, there was something different about hearing this Ben. _Her_ Ben. She would’ve jumped up and down if she hadn’t been so scared to hear what he was going to say next. 

_“This is the last time I’ll try to call you. I mean, I get it if you don’t want to talk to me. Or maybe you’ve just slept in, and I’m being ridiculous. I haven’t really, uh, haven’t been able to sleep, so I’ve just been— yeah.”_

“Shit. SHIT.” Beatrice ran back to her closet, looking for the first set of clean clothes she could find and trying to change with one hand while she listened to the rest of the message. 

_“Part of me was honestly worried that you’d died, or something? You probably shouldn’t have driven yourself home. I mean I know it’s not far, but we’d all been drinking— that’s not the point. Hero told me you got home, anyway, so that’s how I know that.”_

Beatrice pulled Ben’s flannel back on over her tardis shirt and ran downstairs as quickly as she could, trying to ignore the throbbing pain in her head. She grabbed her purse and keys off the counter, and was just about to leave when she noticed a note from Hero posted on the fridge. 

“Hey Bea!” it read. “I went to get groceries. Ben’s called about half a dozen times looking for you, is everything okay? Call me if you need to talk. Love, Hero.” 

_“So, I guess I just wanted to say that I’m sorry.”_ Ben’s voice continued as Beatrice ran outside and got in her car. _“I mean, I’m really, really sorry Bea. Things got out of hand at the party, and I wasn’t helping. I just- I don’t know. So, if you get this, and you don’t completely hate me, please call me back. I… yeah. I love you. I’m sorry. Bye.”_

The message ended with a click. 

Beatrice drove the five blocks to Ben’s house faster than was probably advisable. She didn’t even pause to think as she got out of the car, sprinted up to his door and rang the bell. It wasn’t until she heard footsteps approaching from inside the house that she started to panic. What was she going to do when she saw him? She’d been so busy running around the house like an idiot that she hadn’t thought of a single thing to say. Beatrice was struggling to think up the most concise way to tell him _“I’m sorry I said such horrible things at the party, I’m sorry I’ve been so terrible to you all week, please accept my face on your face as an apology,”_ when the door opened, and everything just stopped. 

Benedick was wearing his pajama pants and Adventure Time shirt, his hair was sticking up in all different directions, and he looked incredibly tired. In short, he was a bit of a mess, and Beatrice had never been happier to see him. 

They stood there for a moment, staring at one another. Then, before she could do anything else, Benedick pulled her close to him and kissed her. 

God, he _kissed_ her.

He kissed her like he never thought he’d see her again. Like she was the air he breathed. 

And Beatrice kissed him back like he was her whole world. 

“Ben, stop,” she said, pulling away. She was out of breath, and her hands were still tangled up in his hair. 

“What?” Benedick looked hurt and worried, like maybe he’d done the wrong thing. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have just- but you didn’t answer the phone, and I…” He waved his arms helplessly, too tired to even string a sentence together. 

“No, Ben, it’s not that.” Beatrice said. God, his eyes were shining. Had they always looked so blue? “I really, _really_ wanted to kiss you.”

“You did?”

“That’s not the point,” she said, trying to fit her thoughts into words. “The point is, you can’t just forgive me for being awful to you.”

“Why not?”

“Why not?” Beatrice couldn’t believe her ears. “Are you serious? How are you willing to forgive me, just like that?

“Because that’s what we do, Bea,” Ben said, defensively. “That’s us. We fight, we get angry, we get over it.”

“But I don’t want you to automatically ‘get over it’ whenever I act like a jerk!” Beatrice argued.

“But you haven’t been acting like a jerk!”

“ _What?_ ” Beatrice wasn’t sure she’d heard him right. “I’ve been a horrible person all week, what are you talking about?”

“What are _you_ talking about?” Ben said. He looked genuinely confused. “I mean sure, last night wasn’t great, but we were both acting like idiots.”

“But every time you said you wanted to talk, and I just ran away—“

“I thought you were running away because I got all resentful whenever you mentioned going abroad.”

“Oh my god,” Beatrice said. “Ben, how are we this bad at communication? That’s supposed to be our thing!” 

Benedick laughed. He leaned in like he was going to kiss her again, but Beatrice put a hand on his shoulder to stop him. 

“Wait,” she said, quietly. “I feel like I still have a million things to apologize for.”

 “Beatrice,” Ben said, looking into her eyes. “We can spend all day apologizing for every stupid thing we’ve ever done, or we can just let it go and be together. So we had a shit week, we can move on from it.” He reached forward and gently laced his fingers through Beatrice’s. “Even if you’re halfway across the world, or I’m being buried under a massive pile of university homework, I think we can do this. I _want_ to do this.”

Beatrice let his words sink in, she couldn’t remember the last time he looked so sure of himself. Then she leaned forward and fell into his arms, burying her face in his shoulder.

It felt so good to finally be there with him, she could hardly believe it was really happening. “Oh my god, Benedick,” she whispered. “I would be a complete disaster without you.”

“So would I,” said Ben, running his hand through her hair. 

“I love you so much, stupid,” Beatrice said, still holding on to Benedick like the universe would pull him away again if she let go. “You know I could never just fall for some ridiculous foreign guy, right?”

“I don’t know love, you’ve already done it once.” Ben said, which made Beatrice laugh. And then she couldn’t stop laughing, and soon they were both holding on to each other and giggling like idiots. Beatrice couldn’t help herself, it was like being filled with happiness and love and everything good in the world.

“I just—“ she broke off, finally catching her breath. She could kiss him now if she wanted to. They could kiss and make up and go back to being normal again, but she needed to talk to him first. “I was scared, Ben. Scared of going out into the world completely on my own, but also scared that— that you would go off to university and forget all about me.” It was such a ridiculous worry, she really didn’t want to say it out loud, but she was done bottling up her feelings. If she couldn’t tell Ben, who could she tell?

“Beatrice,” Ben said, after a second. “And I’m saying this with love, that is the stupidest thing you’ve ever said.” 

“Stupider than when I called you a muggle?”

“Like a billion times stupider.” 

Beatrice admired Ben’s sleepy face. She probably looked awful. Her hair was still in the ponytail she’d put it in before the party, and her hangover was making her squint in the morning sunlight. But there was Benedick, looking at her like she was everything. 

And it was right then that she knew. 

“No matter where we are,” she said, putting her arms around his neck, “no matter how long we have to be apart, I want to be with you.” 

Benedick’s smile could of lit up an entire city.

“Are you sure?” he said, brushing his thumb along her cheek. Beatrice beamed at him.

“Absolutely.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I honestly don't know where to begin. Four months ago I had an idea for a story I never thought I would finish, and now suddenly it's done. And I'm having more feelings than I thought I would!
> 
> Absolutely all of my love and gratitude to every single person who has read, given kudos to, or commented on this story. Your support and messages of enthusiasm made my day every single time. 
> 
> To the people to have consistently liked and reblogged my chapters on tumblr, I see you and I love you all so much! 
> 
> To my friends who have read this story, edited this story, given me positive notes and feedback, you have my eternal gratitude. Special thanks to Claire, my first reader, Shawn, for the encouragement, and Lindsay, who told me many times that she would hunt me down if I made a single change to the ending. (I made a few tweaks. Shhhh, she doesn't have to know.) Thanks also to Grace for being cool, and whose writing made me want to start posting stories in the first place!
> 
> Mostly, I am just incredibly overwhelmed! This is such a kind, welcoming fandom, and I am so grateful to call myself a part of it! 
> 
> I'm still taking prompts on tumblr, if you're interested (although I can't promise I'll get back to you quickly, classes are starting to ramp up again,) but rest assured I am working on a longer fic as well!
> 
> I've been maurading around, looking for new story ideas. Something maybe a little less siruis? Maybe not. Seriousness might worm its way in there. Hey, did I tell you guys about the plants I've been potting? Yeah, I'm an amateur potter. What flowers am I potting, you ask? You know, mostly lilys. 
> 
> Oof. Tangent. Anyways...
> 
> You are all wonderful. Thank you so much for reading. 
> 
> Allons-y, farewell, goodbye : )


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